Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ALDRIDGE-BROWNHILLS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL

EAST SUSSEX COUNTY COUNCIL
(NEWHAVEN BRIDGE) Bill

HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
BILL

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS)(NO. 2) BILL

Bills read the Third time and passed.

OLDHAM CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

BRITISH RAILWAYS (NO. 2) BILL

LONDON TRANSPORT (NO. 2) BILL

OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (NO. 2)
BILL

Bills, as amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

BRISTOL CORPORATION (WEST DOCK) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Bill to be read a second time upon Tuesday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Postal Charges

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he can now make a further statement on the forthcoming proposals for increases in postal charges, having regard to diminished revenue and strike losses.

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (Mr. Christopher Chataway): No, Sir. No such proposals have yet reached me.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday, without any kind of parliamentary statement, overseas parcel rates were dramatically increased, thereby knocking the whole of our exports? In view of informed opinion now circulating that first-class postal rates are to go up from 3p to 4p in the autumn, and up to 5p on 1st January next, will my right hon. Friend undertake to see that the first to be informed whenever postal or parcel rates are changed is the House of Commons, and that it will not be done by administrative action in company with the B.B.C. or other agencies for the dissemination of news?

Mr. Chataway: I should not wish to lend any support to my hon. Friend's forecast about the first-class letter rate. The increases in overseas parcel rates were entirely consequential upon decisions taken about increases at the Tokyo Conference of the U.P.U. in 1969, and these international increases are similar for all countries.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that if there is to be a further increase—and the right hon. Gentleman has said on several occasions that he did not think this would be necessary—the announcement of it will be made in the House in the first place?
Second—and this backs up the point made by the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro)—we have all read in the newspapers that overseas parcel rates are to be increased, and we have now been told that the reason why no explanation has been given to the many firms affected by the increase—and many are—is that there have been printing difficulties in the Post Office, and therefore the Post Office has not been able to advise its customers of the change. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will direct the attention of the Post Office Board to these important questions.

Mr. Chataway: The impending increases in overseas parcel rates were announced last year. The exact scale of the increases to each individual country depends upon the charges from other overseas administrations. The individual charges were coming in during April and May. The Post Office then has to notify its customers and to print a long list of overseas postal charges involved. I think that it probably could not have done it more quickly.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he should con gratulate his hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro)——

Sir G. Nabarro: Hear, hear.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: —because yesterday he said that the Government had increased food prices by 8½ per cent., and they are now to increase postal charges. The Government won the election on the promise of cutting prices at a stroke. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that under this Government no prices will go up?

Mr. Chataway: The increases in the overseas parcel charges are, as I have explained, entirely consequential upon increased charges abroad.

Sir G. Nabarro: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory reply, I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment as early as possible.

Union of Post Office Workers

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications

whether he will seek a meeting with the Union of Post Office Workers.

Mr. Chataway: I see no current reason to do so.

Mr. Price: In view of what the hon. Member for South Worcestershire (Sir G. Nabarro) said—[Interruption.]—I thought that that might bring him back into the Chamber—is the Minister not aware that the Post Office has even more leakages than the Department of Trade and Industry? Has he discussed with the Union of Post Office Workers some of these leaked proposals by the Post Office to cripple its postal services?

Mr. Chataway: I have not had discussions with the U.P.W. about changes in postal services, but so far as I am aware, there has been no leak from the Post Office—although the Chairman of the Post Office Board has discussed, and in public, some of the possibilities which are open to the Post Office.

Mr. Charles Morris: Irrespective of his reply, the Minister will undoubtedly be having meetings with the Union of Post Office Workers in future. In such meetings, will he place high on the agenda the perceptive editorial in yesterday's Daily Mail about the need for improved management-staff relationships and morale of Post Office staff within the Post Office generally?

Mr. Chataway: I should certainly be willing to discuss with the U.P.W. any matters which fall within my responsibility. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the particular matter to which he refers is primarily for the management of the Post Office.

Departmental Costs

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will give the total costs of the running of his former Department which ended on 1st October, 1969, on the setting up of the Post Office Board, and his present Department; and to what extent there has been a saving in administrative costs since 1st October, 1969, due to the ending of his being responsible for all matters pertaining to the day-to-day running of the Post Office.

Mr. Chataway: No meaningful comparison is possible between the cost of


running the Post Office prior to 1st October, 1969, and the cost of running my Ministry subsequently. The functions of the two Departments are quite different.

Mr. Lewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware—he should be, from looking at the Order Paper today—that he has lost two-thirds of the work which former Postmasters-General did, because all day-to-day administration has been taken away from him? Therefore, he must have saved a lot of money. Is it not about time that his Department was wound up and put into the Department of the Environment, thus cutting out all this waste of money—on which, again, we had promises from the Government which have never been implemented?

Mr. Chataway: I have an enormous regard for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, naturally, but although, as I have explained to the hon. Gentleman, there is no possibility of making meaningful comparisons, for what it is worth, the administration expenses of the "old" Post Office in the last six months of its life were £194 million, and the administration expenses for my own Ministry in a comparable six months were about £500,000.

Mr. Lewis: Well, do away with it—it is a waste of money.

Radio Leeds

Mr. Cohen: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what progress is being made in relation to the provision of a new transmitter for Radio Leeds; and what is the approximate date when this will be in operation.

Mr. Chataway: The B.B.C. have put proposals to me but they would need to be considered in relation to a comprehensive frequency plan which would accommodate not only the B.B.C.'s local stations but also the new service envisaged in my recent White Paper.

Mr. Cohen: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that this is a question of V.H.F. rather than the medium frequencies? Would he not agree that it seems to be a tremendous waste of money to produce excellent programmes which the listening public are then unable to hear? Is he not aware of the growing concern in the

Leeds conurbation area, which includes about a million people, at the fact that their programmes have been blotted out by Radio Manchester and Radio Humberside, because of their more powerful transmitters? In view of this, would he undertake to reconsider the situation?

Mr. Chataway: There has to be a comprehensive frequency plan for V.H.F. as for medium frequency, and any changes in the allocation of frequencies for B.B.C. local stations would have to await the preparation of that comprehensive frequency plan.

Mr. Alfred Morris: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Mr. Cohen) for any disturbance or interference caused by Radio Manchester to what I know to be an excellent radio station in Leeds. Would the Minister agree that Radio Manchester and other local stations could go over to medium wave fairly quickly if only he would give his consent? Why the delay?

Mr. Chataway: I have explained the position—as I did in the debate before the Recess. It is that we have to apply for the use of international medium wave frequencies which are principally allocated to other countries, and thereafter a comprehensive frequency plan has to be worked out to accommodate both the commercial stations and the B.B.C. There is no short-cut here.

Commercial Radio White Paper

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications when he expects to introduce a Bill to give effect to his White Paper on Commercial Radio.

Mr. Chataway: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) on 19th April.—[Vol. 815, c. 327.]

Mr. Jenkins: I do not have in my mind precisely what that reply was. When the Minister introduces his Bill, will he ensure that the alternative services which he proposes in his White Paper will add to the quality of radio and not merely to the quantity, and that arrangements will be included in the Bill to ensure that the service which will be provided will cover the whole range of radio and not merely one very small portion of the spectrum?

Mr. Chataway: Yes, indeed.

Mr. Farr: Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the ownership of the new commercial stations will be as widely spread as possible and that, for instance, local newspapers will not be given a monopoly interest?

Mr. Chataway: Yes, I entirely agree that that is extremely important.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Before the Minister publishes any legislation, will he, as was suggested in the debate, discuss the matter with the new regional authorities, particularly the new town corporations, some of whom have shown great interest in this in the last few weeks?

Mr. Chataway: I have had views put to me and I shall certainly be willing to accept any representations which may be made from those quarters.

Post Office Corporation (Equipment)

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what percentage of manufactured equipment delivered to the Post Office Corporation by outside contractors during the past 12 months was late.

Mr. Chataway: This is a matter for the Post Office, who tell me that no single statistic covering the many items of equipment purchased is available.

Mr. Price: Is that not strange, in view of the fact that previous Postmasters-General have given that figure and that it is widely recognised in the industry to be between 75 and 80 per cent.? Is it not clear that the Post Office is getting a good deal of the blame for the incompetence of private industry? Is it not time that the Postmaster-General invited his friends to get their well-covered figures out?

Mr. Chataway: There is not a Postmaster-General. The Post Office tell me that, at any one time, there are about 11,000 contracts current for tens of thousands of different items of equipment. They do not think that it will make any sense to produce a statistic covering all of them. If the hon. Gentleman is talking only about exchange equipment, there are some very deep-seated problems here.

Mr. James Hamilton: Will the Minister not use his powers of office to try to get the Post Office Corporation to speed up the supplies of this equipment, which is so vital to give telephones to people who are waiting? Would he not suggest to the Chairman of the Corporation that this equipment should be manufactured by the Corporation itself, particularly in the development areas and in my own area, Lanarkshire, in particular? In that way, we could solve two problems: we could solve the unemployment problem and at the same time give people the telephones which are so urgently required.

Mr. Chataway: I have no reason to think that manufacture by the Post Office is the answer to this problem. I have had no proposals for this put to me by the Board. But, as the hon. Gentleman knows, a great deal of this equipment is already manufactured in the development areas.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: But the Minister knows that the Post Office Board in its Annual Report referred to the persistent inability of the manufacturing industry to meet these orders on time, and that some 1,400 contracts were in delay by that time. Would he at least have meetings with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about the whole question of this industry and supplies to the Post Office? It affects not only exchange equipment and telephones here at home but the standing of our export trade, which is something which should worry all of us.

Mr. Chataway: I and the Post Office Board are certainly concerned about the delivery of exchange equipment. The difficulty is mainly with the problems of changing over the proprietary brands of crossbar exchange equipment to equipment suitable for the Post Office. There have been development problems which have been much greater than both the Post Office and the manufacturers originally envisaged.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENVIRONMENT

Road Accidents (Transport of Gases)

Mr. Loughlin: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will institute inquiries into the number of road accidents in which it is suspected that butane and other gases may have


been carried in the vehicles involved; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): I have no evidence that the carriage of gases such as butane contributes seriously to road accidents, but I shall be glad to look into any specific incident of the hon. Gentleman will let me have particulars.

Mr. Loughlin: I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's offer to look into any instance that may be drawn to his attention. Is he aware that there have been one or two accidents—I do not wish to make a great deal of this, though these accidents have resulted in death—in which it has been suspected that butane gas had been carried, not in the containers which I think the right hon. Gentleman has in mind but in the stoves which people use for picnics, and that the carriage of this gas had been a contributory factor to the accidents? Will the Minister ascertain from the police authorities what evidence there is that the carriage of gas in stoves, after they have been used for picnics, presents a danger in road accidents?

Mr. Peyton: I will certainly make any inquiries that seem to be useful. As for the major question of the transportation of gases and dangerous substances, which is what I thought the hon. Gentleman had in mind, that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. However, in view of his supplementary question, I will look into the matter to see whether there is anything I can do.

Planning Regulations (Contravention)

Mr. Loughlin: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will institute an inquiry into the increasing number of developers who flout planning regulations and contravene conditions of planning consent; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): No, Sir. I have no evidence of an increase in breaches of planning control. The 1968 Act gave local planning authorities increased powers for enforcement of planning requirements.

Mr. Loughlin: Does not the hon. Gentleman read the newspapers? Is he aware that a considerable number of

cases have been reported in the Press recently of a complete flouting of planning regulations? Does he have knowledge of the case which I brought to the attention of his right hon. Friend in which the conditions laid down were completely contravened by developers? Is it not a fact that some of the larger developers are getting away with murder?

Mr. Page: I am aware of the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I do not think that that, in itself, is sufficient evidence for the sort of inquiry for which he is asking. It is for the local authorities themselves to consider whether it is expedient for them to use their powers of enforcement; and these powers were considerably increased by the 1968 Act.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Is my hon. Friend aware that the answer to this problem is for planning permission to be given before demolition and not upon construction? If that were to happen, people could not demolish anything until they had obtained planning permission. This would prevent buildings from being pulled down on a technicality. Does the Minister agree that it is about time that the Ministry did something about this problem?

Mr. Page: The point about having to obtain planning permission before demolition raises another question, though it is one which we have under consideration.

Office Rents in the City of London

Mr. Blaker: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he has given to the Report, Office Rents in the City of London and their Effect on Invisible Earnings, produced by the Committee on Invisible Exports, a copy of which is in his possession; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I am grateful to the Chairman of the Committee, Sir Cyril Kleinwort, for a copy of the study of office rents in the City of London done for his Committee by the Economists' Advisory Group. It will be of great value in considering what further modifications to the office control might be desirable in the future.

Mr. Blaker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Committee takes the view that on present trends business is likely to be driven from London to other countries because of high rents in the City of London and the shortage of office accommodation, thus imperilling the growth of our invisible earnings? Is he giving consideration to the suggestion that the system of office development permits should be abolished.

Mr. Walker: The O.D.P. system is important for the development of the whole of the South-East. Although there is some evidence that rents have increased substantially in the City due to the shortage of office space, a substantial increase in the granting of O.D.Ps. has been allowed in recent years, in addition to which many firms have moved out of the City into other areas.

Mr. Fernyhough: Having regard to the social problems which any additional employment in Central London inevitably brings and the lack of office employment elsewhere, particularly in the northern development area, will the right hon. Gentleman be very lukewarm towards any suggestion to extend office development in London until a much more formidable attack has been made on the unemployment problem in the development areas?

Mr. Walker: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the O.D.P. system has not, alas, had the favourable effect that was hoped for it in moving offices to the North. However, as I said, there has been a substantial movement in recent years. The O.D.P. system is, however, an important instrument of planning in the South-East. Equally, the right hon. Gentleman is right to draw the attention of the House to some of the social problems which result from the concentration of too much office development in London.

Council House Rents

Mr. Eadie: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authorities have now intimated to him that they will not increase house rents.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): Local authorities are not required to inform

me if they do not propose to increase rents.

Mr. Eadie: May I take it from that answer that if a local authority were to inform the right hon. Gentleman that it did not intend to increase its rents, the Government—especially in view of the mandate which local authorities recently acquired from the electorate—would not seek to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with that decision of the local authority?

Mr. Amery: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman awaits the report which I hope to make to the House in due course about my discussions with the local authority associations on our proposals for the reform of housing finance.

Mr. Marks: Will local councils have any control whatever over the rents of their houses when the right hon. Gentleman's scheme comes into operation, or will their rents have to be based on rateable values?

Mr. Amery: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will await the report which I shall be making to the House.

Mr. Crosland: We require a definite statement from the Minister on this point. If a local authority does not wish to increase its rents, will the Government compel it to raise them to what they consider to be a fair rent level? If so, what becomes of all the Tory talk about greater freedom for local authorities?

Mr. Amery: I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to await the report which I shall be making to the House. It will be available very soon.

Mrs. Doris Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the cost rent of a new Parker Morris Standard house will be more or less than the fair rent; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Amery: In most though not in all cases the fair rent of newly built dwellings is likely to be less than their cost as reflected in the housing revenue account.

Mrs. Fisher: If the rearrangement of Government subsidies is that they are to be given only to those who cannot afford fair rents, will not other council tenants be called upon to pay fair rents, and if the figure now being worked out of the


cost of the Parker Morris house is to be higher than that rent, who is to pay it?

Mr. Amery: I must ask the hon. Lady to await the report which I will make to the House when our discussions with the local authority associations are complete.

Mr. Leonard: Would the right hon. Gentleman desist from using the term "fair rent" in this context, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the Government's proposals do not provide for the essential feature of fair rents, as compared with the private sector where they can be freely negotiated between individual landlords and tenants?

Mr. Amery: I must ask the hon. Member to resist the temptation to pronounce upon this till I have made my report to the House.

Television Licences (Old-age Pensioners)

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce legislation which would permit local authorities, if they so desired, to contribute towards the cost of television licences for old-age pensioners.

Mr. Graham Page: Although television licences are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, I will reply.
There are no plans to introduce such legislation.

Mr. Fernyhough: That is a most disappointing answer. Is the hon. Gentleman unaware of the burden that the price of a television licence can represent to a person living on a State pension or supplementary benefits? If a local authority is prepared to meet this cost, why not give it power to make a contribution towards easing the burdens on its aged citizens and so make life a little more enjoyable for them?

Mr. Page: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is always difficulty when considering concessionary licences and other matters of this sort. One may be helping a person who happens to have a television set but not another person who does not have one. I suggest that if it were decided that such a concession should be made, it should be done by the central Government rather than by local government.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my hon. Friend aware that his reply will give great satisfaction to those who believe in justice? A concessionary licence of this kind would be unfair to pensioners who are blind or who do not wish to watch television. In any event, the granting of concessions of this kind is wrong. What we want is proper pensions.

Mr. Ashton: Is the Minister aware of a discrepancy which already exists? A number of pensioners live in bungalows which are under the control of a warden. That warden will obtain one licence for all the television sets in those bungalows. This results in each pensioner having to pay only a few shillings a year for the individual part of the licence. This naturally infuriates pensioners who live in houses and other accommodation which are not controlled by wardens. Will the hon. Gentleman please allow local authorities which wish to do so to get rid of this discrepancy?

Mr. Page: I still do not believe that this is a job for local authorities. If it is decided that it is right, then it is a job for the central Government.

North-East Kent (Cross-Estuary Link)

Mr. Moate: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will consider commissioning a feasibility study into a cross-estuary link in order to improve the economic viability of a Foulness Airport and to bring some economic benefit to North-East Kent.

Mr. Peter Walker: It is doubtful whether the additional traffic flows generated by the third London airport would, by themselves, justify a new cross-estuary link. The Government will, however, consider proposals for such a link in the context of the South-East Joint Planning Study.

Mr. Moate: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that many people consider that a cross-estuary link, a tunnel or bridge, at this point would be economically and technically feasible and should be part of the planning of the airport at the outset and not left as a long-term possibility?

Mr. Walker: I must inform the House that the Government have recently


announced their agreement to the construction of a second road tunnel between Kent and Essex at Dartford and that we are considering the possibility of a link lower down the river as part of our study of the South-East Region. The third London airport is not a major factor in this decision.

Local Authority Mortgages (Wife's Earnings)

Mr. Moate: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has advised local authorities not to take into account the earnings of a wife in established employment when calculating the amount of a mortgage offer under the government scheme for local authority loans.

Mr. Amery: No, Sir. Local authorities have complete discretion in this matter.

Mr. Moate: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that many local authorities refuse to take into account wives' earnings when calculating mortgage advances, even when those wives are in established employment? As this could have the effect of reducing the benefit of his recent policy statement, would he consider issuing reasonable guidelines to local authorities about mortgage advances?

Mr. Amery: It would be wrong for me to try to direct local authorities; indeed, I have no powers to do so. A number of local authorities take a progressive view about this and take into account a wife's earnings in appropriate instances. I hope that more will do so.

Fleet Line

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will announce his proposals for capital grant for the Fleet line.

Mr. Graham Page: As soon as possible.

Mr. Spearing: Is the Minister aware that his Government have made great claims that they are following the policy of the previous Government in respect of certain aspects of transport policy in London? Will he not follow those precedents and give a 75 per cent. grant to this line, as the previous Government did to the Victoria Line extension to Brixton? Will he say why the Gov-

ernment have given a 75 per cent. grant to Liverpool for an underground railway but are not yet prepared to give such a grant to London?

Mr. Page: I am not saying at present whether a 75 per cent. grant will or will not be given in this case. We are asked to commit £70 million of taxpayers' money and it is important that we should examine this matter very carefully before a decision is made.

Mr. Walter Johnson: Is the Minister aware that this continued uncertainty may well cause difficulty in retaining tunnelling staff and expert technical staff? If these teams are broken up, it will considerably increase the cost of constructing this line.

Mr. Page: I will certainly give consideration to that point, but this project needs very thorough examination.

Dumping and Waste Disposal (Estuarial and Tidal Waters)

Mrs. Kellett: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the studies of dumping and waste disposal in estuaries and tidal waters; and if he will give the figures for waste disposed in estuarial and tidal waters for 1969–70 and 1970–71.

Mr. Peter Walker: A Working Party set up by my Department is investigating the sludge tipping in Liverpool Bay and will be reporting later on this year. The Water Pollution Research Laboratory has made and is making studies of estuaries which include the effects of waste disposal. I have no overall figures for waste disposal in estuarial and tidal waters but the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is including this subject in its current study of the problems of pollution in tidal waters.

Mrs. Kellett: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that a very small number of unscrupulous firms are moving from one area of tidal water to another, discrediting reputable firms and causing considerable havoc before the law catches up with them, and that a tightening up of the law to deal with such operators is an urgent necessity?

Mr. Walker: I hope that my hon. Friend will give me details of any such cases, which I will certainly look into.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: My right hon. Friend will be aware that estuarial waters and tidal waters are one of the best sources of water for human consumption. Will he take the utmost precautions to see that these waters are kept clean and used in the near future for that purpose?

Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. This is why I am pleased that the Royal Commission is giving priority to this topic.

Road Traffic Acts (Compulsory Insurance)

Mr. Fry: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will consider proposing that the Road Traffic Acts be extended to require that compulsory insurance be for full third party liability.

Mr. Peyton: I have no such intention at present.

Mr. Fry: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that I am rather disappointed by his reply? Many innocent persons, often unable to obtain comprehensive cover themselves, have suffered considerable material loss because the people causing the loss are men of straw, and that something should be done to protect the innocent?

Mr. Peyton: There is a great deal of good sense in what my hon. Friend says, but at present I am not satisfied that we should be justified in taking the very considerable additional compulsory powers.

Mr. Bob Brown: Would not the Minister agree that, since the State demands that motor vehicles should be insured, the State should take a direct hand in the insurance by taking control of motor vehicle insurance once and for all?

Mr. Peyton: No, Sir. To me, that is a very bad idea indeed.

Local Government Re-organisation

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will be commencing consultations with members of local authorities and councillors on the timing of elections, following the reorganisation of local government.

Mr. Peter Walker: This is one of the matters on which I have already sought the views of the local authority associations and other interested bodies.

Mrs. Oppenheim: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is generally felt that these discussions should take place as quickly as possible to allay the considerable uncertainties and apprehensions which exist? Can he say whether these discussions are likely to result in an early decision with regard to aldermanic elections?

Mr. Walker: I do not think that anybody could accuse me of going too slowly in my consultations on local government reform, but I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a need to try to come to decisions on this topic and to announce them as quickly as possible.

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has now received from local authorities on the distribution of functions in the reorganisation of local government in response to his Circular 8/71.

Mr. Graham Page: Circular 8/71 sought views only on proposed new areas, though a number of authorities have taken the opportunity to comment also on the allocation of functions. My right hon. Friend is in consultation with the local authority associations on the allocation of functions.

Miss Fookes: Will the Government take action if certain local authorities, or a number of them, are worried about the distribution of functions, or is it completely, signed, sealed and settled already?

Mr. Page: No, indeed it is not. My hon. Friend will know the difference between a White Paper and a Green Paper. On several occasions I have remarked that the back page of the White Paper, which sets out the functions, is tinged with green.

Mr. Crosland: The whole House will be relieved to hear that the matter is not signed, sealed and settled already. What reply has the hon. Gentleman given to the overwhelmingly powerful representations from Grimsby as to both functions and powers?

Mr. Page: None.

Historic Buildings

Mrs. Fenner: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review the safeguards for historic buildings in danger of arbitrary demolition.

Mr. Peter Walker: I shall certainly do so if it could be shown that there are loopholes in existing legislation.

Mrs. Fenner: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, which I do not find reassuring. In view of a much-publicised recent demolition, I had hoped that he would be prepared to look again at the safeguards and to include in a review of them another look at the safeguards for buildings which are not themselves of great historical value but which form a vital part of a street scene.

Mr. Walker: I have already announced that in certain areas we shall seek to introduce legislation so that local authorities can demand an application for planning permission for a building to be demolished. This we shall do at the earliest opportunity. On the other point mentioned by my hon. Friend, if loopholes are indicated when final examinations have taken place, we shall take action to stop them.

Mr. Boyden: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many retirement pensioners were admitted to the historic buildings and ancient monuments in his care at reduced rates during the last 12 months.

Mr. Amery: There is no separate record of attendances by retirement pensioners.

Mr. Boyden: Surely the right hon. Gentleman's Department admits that retirement pensioners get reduced rates? Will he tell the House which Department is making Government policy—the D.E.S., which is charging retirement pensioners for admission to museums and so on, or his Department, which lets them in at a cheaper rate? Which is the right policy?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman is well remembered for having brought to the House the concession to old-age pensioners and children. I am glad to say that in 1970 2,744,000 old-age pensioners

and children were admitted to ancient monuments at half price. This is a policy with which the hon. Gentleman is closely concerned and which continues.

Refuse Disposal

Mrs. Kellett: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his Department has set up a study of the vacuum pressure method of refuse disposal.

Mr. Peter Walker: This is one of many aspects of refuse collection and disposal which is under consideration in my Department. Work relating to pipe transportation of refuse is being undertaken by the Department's Building Research Station.

Mrs. Kellett: I thank my right hon. Friend.

Thames Barrier

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will publish the engineering assessment of alternative designs for the Thames Barrier.

Mr. Graham Page: I am informed that the Greater London Council's second report of studies will include a section on the various types of structure examined by engineers and the conclusions drawn. As I said in the statement which I circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 28th April last, when I receive the council's report I shall, with agreement, place copies in the Library.

Mr. Spearing: I thank the Minister for that reply. Would not he recall that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced last December that he had accepted a particular design and that the G.L.C. announced similarly so in March? Does not the Minister consider that a six-month gap between the announcement of a Government policy and the publication of these facts is not good government?

Mr. Page: Because of the grave risk of tidal flooding, it has been necessary to take certain decisions, especially on the location of the barrier, the type of barrier, the amount of grant to be made and so on, so that the trial borings and the design work can go ahead as swiftly


as possible. It has been necessary to make those decisions because today we are faced with odds against a tidal flood in London as short as 34 to 1, and shortening all the time.

Mr. Trew: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the main requirement of the Thames flood barrier is now to get it built together with the associated downstream flood defences? Would he consider appointing one man with overall executive responsibility for the entire project? At present there is uncertainty in the public mind as to who is responsible.

Mr. Page: I do not think so, but I will take suggestions as to who that "one man" should be.

Mr. Braine: Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that careful thought is being given not merely to the effect of tidal and surge behaviour on the defences of downstream authorities but, because of the combination of the installation of a Thames barrier with large-scale dredging of sands, to the alteration of the configuration of the estuary which will flow from the establishment of a Foulness airport?

Mr. Page: Yes, indeed. These are important matters which are receiving deep consideration.

Organised Walks

Mr. Fry: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will have consultations with the appropriate authorities with a view to seeking powers to regulate organised walks, in view of the danger to human life and the traffic hazards that they can entail.

Mr. Peyton: Though I deplore the holding of organised walks in a manner contrary to the advice of my Department and the police, I should be reluctant to seek legal powers to control them.

Mr. Fry: I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of the real public concern on the subject. Will he not agree that, at the very least, such walks should be registered with the police for their approval, in the interests of road safety?

Mr. Peyton: I think that most organisers do seek police advice. What I deplore is their not following that advice when they have sought it How-

ever, I feel that we should be going a very long way and be taking a serious step if we sought to control access by pedestrians to the highway.

Mr. Crawshaw: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it that many people will be delighted with his reply, and will he agree that, despite accidents, we ought to keep a sense of proportion in these matters, remembering that on these walks many young people take part for the first time in something which will assist the community, and quite often this leads to their taking an active part in community work?

Mr. Peyton: I am immensely obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question, if only because it gives me an opportunity to remind the House and others outside that every year 28,000 pedestrians are killed or seriously injured on our roads, only a very small proportion of whom are involved in these walks.

Birmingham-Nottingham Motorway

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the Midland Road Construction Unit engaged in surveying a proposed route for the M42 Birmingham to Nottingham motorway has taken, is taking, or will take boreholes along alternative projected routes in addition to the boreholes now being prepared just north of Risley.

Mr. Graham Page: No other soil survey has been or is at present being made. Further boreholes will be taken, if necessary, for selection of a proposed route for the motorway.

Mr. Rost: I agree that the M42 motorway is urgently needed, but is my hon. Friend aware that my constituents are extremely concerned at the evidence which they have that the boreholes have so far been taken in only one area; namely, through the beautiful villages of Risley and Stanton, and right across the Erewash golf course? Will he please note that my constituents will not stand by and watch the environment being polluted and ransacked for a motorway route which we all believe could be resited far more favourably in another area?

Mr. Page: I am extremely sorry that it should be thought that there is a risk


of the Erewash Valley golf course being destroyed by a motorway. In fact, there is no decision on this matter yet. The stage of taking trial boreholes is only an investigation stage, and there is yet no chosen route.

Protection of the Environment (Airport Noise)

Mr. Allason: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many letters he has recveived regarding the protection of the environment.

Mr. Peter Walker: A large number, but, due to their diversity, I cannot give a precise figure.

Mr. Allason: Can my right hon. Friend say how many of those letters relate to noise disturbance from Luton Airport-As the situation is rapidly getting out of hand there because the airport traffic is constantly expanding, and as my constituents are looking to the Government for protection, could my right hon. Friend define to what extent he is concerned for the environment in this matter?

Mr. Walker: I have received a large number of letters on this topic relating to Luton airport, and my hon. Friend will know that the Government have decided to take powers so that they have greater control over local authority airports in future.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been considerable concern also about the increased noise from aircraft from Leavesden airport in my constituency, and has he any comment to make about that?

Mr. Walker: I have had fewer letters from there than I have had from Luton, but I take note of what the hon. Gentleman says.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Will my right hon. Friend fish out from among the many letters which he has received the one dated 25th May from the Mayor of Winchester, Councillor Stanley Steel, and will he reply to him on the subject of preserving the ancient office of mayor in the cities and boroughs of this country?

Mr. Walker: I am not quite sure of the environmental effects of the mayor's office.

Mr. Crosland: When the right hon. Gentleman replies to the numerous letters which he receives, will he kindly not enclose with his replies copies of the various fulsome articles written about him by naive journalists in the Evening Standard and other newspapers, in which all that the right hon. Gentleman can find to do is to claim credit for policies wholly initiated by the previous Government?

Mr. Walker: If the previous Government had fulfilled a few policies instead of just initiating discussions, they might have got somewhere.

A670 (Upper Mill Village)

Mr. David Clark: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the reduction of traffic on the A670 through Upper Mill village when the M62 is completed.

Mr. Graham Page: The A670 is a principal road for which the West Riding County Council is the responsible authority. I understand that the council is collecting traffic data but is not yet in a position to forecast future traffic. There may, however, be some reduction when the Lancashire section of the M62 is opened later this year.

Mr. Clark: I thank the Minister for that reply, but is he aware that the failure by himself and the West Riding County Council to provide an estimate is being used as an excuse for failure to provide a bypass for Upper Mill, which was first mooted over 34 years ago? Will he do what he can to give priority for a bypass for that small area?

Mr. Page: It is true that as long ago as 1967 there was included in the preparation list a scheme to bypass Upper Mill, but the county council cannot submit a programme report until it is clear what the effects of the opening of the various stages of the M62 will be on the A670 traffic. It hopes to submit a report in the summer of 1972.

European Economic Community

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to seek powers to negotiate reciprocal agreements with Common Market countries, should the United


Kingdom enter the European Economic Community, for assisted road and rail fare schemes for retirement pensioners.

Mr. Peyton: No, Sir.

Mr. Spriggs: That is a most disappointing reply. In view of the negotiations now going on with the E.E.C., is it not a pity that Britatin will be left behind the other countries of the Community? As there are literally hundreds of thousands of pensioners in this country who are prisoners in their own homes, would it not be a good idea if the right hon. Gentleman were to give this question more careful thought and return to the House with a far more progressive reply?

Mr. Peyton: I am extremely sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so disappointed with what was a predictable answer. The question of concessionary fares within this country is for the local authorities and the carriers concerned. In the rest of his supplementary question the hon. Gentleman allowed his thought to become tinged by the hypothetical.

Twilight Areas

Mr. Trew: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what advice he has given to local authorities on collaboration with private enterprise and the voluntary housing movement in the redevelopment of twilight areas.

Mr. Amery: Authorities have been advised of the considerable scope for working with housing associations in general improvement areas, including twilight areas. They have been asked to encourage these associations to buy houses coming on the market and improve or convert and manage them. A number of councils have also initiated joint redevelopment projects of various kinds. I hope that more will follow suit.

Mr. Trew: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Has he made a study of the American techniques for urban renewal, and has he come to a conclusion on their suitability for use in this country?

Mr. Amery: I must apologise for not having made such a study, but on my hon. Friend's advice I shall do so.

Mr. Tom Boardman: Will my right hon. Friend encourage other local authorities to follow the example of the Conservative-controlled Leicester City Council in its Clarenden Park scheme, which he has visited?

Mr. Amery: I salute what Leicester has done in this matter.

Mr. Freeson: I trust that the Minister is aware that there was a working party in the Department looking into the major question of land costs in this connection. Has that working party yet completed its report and made any recommendations which the House might be interested to hear?

Mr. Amery: I cannot say off-hand, but, if the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question, I shall look into it.

Derelict Land

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that the official total of derelict land adequately reflects the extent of land which is actually derelict; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Walker: No, Sir. The present form of survey was designed with local authority reclamation of past industrial dereliction primarily in mind. Proposals for a survey on a wider basis have been discussed with the local authority associations and are now being tested by selected local authorities.

Miss Fookes: When will we get a final result on this—in months or years?

Mr. Walker: There are two discrepancies in the present figure. First, under the present definition there is scope for local authorities to re-examine whether they have found all the derelict land concerned. We have asked them to do so. These test surveys are taking place at the present time.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Would my right hon. Friend agree that this is tied in with the much wider question of a survey of land in this country, which is sadly lacking and which ought to be carried out as soon as possible?

Mr. Walker: We are proceeding at a pretty fast rate on regional planning use and dealing with derelict land. We will double expenditure on this in the coming year.

Mr. David Clark: Would the right hon. Gentleman confirm that coal spoil heaps which are in current use are not classed as derelict land? Could he give us an indication whether the amount of derelict land being cleared exceeds the amount of derelict land being created?

Mr. Walker: It depends on the definition we give to "derelict land". The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first point is "Yes". As far as the second is concerned, defined derelict land is being cleared at a fast and accelerating rate.

Building Materials (Price Increase)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment by what amount the increase in the price of building materials during the last 12 months has increased the cost of building an average size three-bedroom house.

Mr. Amery: The rise in the price of house building materials between March, 1970 and March, 1971 is estimated to have increased the cost of building an average size three-bedroom house by 4 per cent.

Mr. Boyden: Since this shocking price increase has run right across building contracts does it not make the Minister's policy of fixed two-year price contracts quite unrealistic and unfair? Has he seen the report of the Buckinghamshire Works Committee which shows that, since January, of the 30 lowest tenders only two were within the approved cost limits?

Mr. Amery: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, with his wide understanding of these matters, will have appreciated that the increase in costs will be almost exactly offset by the abolition of S.E.T.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS

Closed Circuit Television

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will recommend to the Services Committee that an experimental period of closed-circuit television should be available in St. Stephen's Hall for the benefit of visitors waiting to get into the Public Gallery.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I think con-

sideration of the hon. Member's suggestion must await the House's decision on the general issue of televising our proceedings.

Mr. Dalyell: Since many of us are already receiving requests for tickets to view the Common Market debate and since, in its unwisdom or otherwise, the House has decided that this great debate will not be televised, should not those who have taken the trouble to come here, rather than simply having to wait for hours outside, queuing in St. Stephen's, at least have the chance of seeing what is going on?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am sure that the Services Committee will be prepared to consider any such proposal if that is the general feeling of the House. I can only point out that steps in this direction have to be taken very tentatively because even the annunciators to show people in the Strangers Gallery and those in the Press Gallery who is speaking in the House received on the whole a somewhat critical reception after their introduction yesterday.

Mr. Montgomery: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is a risk that people waiting in St. Stephen's Hall watching the proceedings of this House on closed-circuit television, seeing some of the performances we have to witness from the other side of the House, might change their mind about coming and we might have a very empty Public Gallery?

Mr. Whitelaw: All of these are matters which can be considered. If the House thinks it is worth while considering them, I am prepared that they should be considered.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that since the reduction of the voting age to 18, secondary school children are becoming more and more interested in how Parliament works? Would he take note of this and, if it is at all possible, instead of using only St. Stephen's Hall, let Great Hall, Westminster, be available to the public?

Mr. Whitelaw: These matters are always controversial in the House. However I have noted the hon. Gentleman's views and I will certainly see that the Services Committee considers these possibilities.

Top Salaries Review Body

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will now state how many persons he has appointed to the Boyle Committee of Investigation into the pay of Members of Parliament; when he expects to complete the filling of vacancies; when Members can commence to submit their evidence; where this has to be sent; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Whitelaw: The membership of the Top Salaries Review Body was announced by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister on 27th May. The Review Body has already begun its work and is giving priority to the review of Ministers' and Members' pay. I understand that a questionnaire which will enable Members to give written evidence to the Review Body will be issued very shortly and that the arrangements for Members to give oral evidence are currently being worked out.
May I take this opportunity to inform the House that the terms of reference of the Review Body's inquiry are
to review, and to recommend what changes are desirable in, the emoluments, allowances and expenses of Ministers of the Crown and Members of the House of Commons, including Mr. Speaker and other holders of remunerated offices in both Houses of Parliament, and the relevant pension arrangements.

Mr. Lewis: May I thank the Leader of the House for that full reply and ask him whether, to help the Committee, he will get his Department to collate the various Questions and answers that have been asked over the past six or seven years as the information would be useful to the Committee? Will he ask whether the Committee could extend its terms of reference to include pensions for former Members of Parliament, some of whom have done 30 or more years without one halfpenny in pension? Is he aware that everyone is agreed that if a man or woman has given long service to this House it is about time that he or she should receive some form of pension?

Mr. Whitelaw: On the hon. Gentleman's first request, I must point out that what he describes as my Department consists of a private office of four people. I do not think that it would be able to

collate all this evidence but I will certainly help the Committee in every way I can. As to the point about the terms of reference, they were drawn as widely as possible to make sure that every matter could be considered. I think that they have been drawn as widely as the hon. Gentleman hopes, but I will check on that.

Mr. William Hamilton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Government intend to present to the House a package deal in the autumn containing increases in the Civil List, in Members' pay, in the Speaker's emoluments and in the emoluments paid to Members of the House of Lords?

Mr. Whitelaw: What may happen in the autumn will depend on a large number of people. One of the points that the hon. Gentleman raises is a matter for the Select Committee on the Civil List, of which he is a member. On the second point of increases in the pay of Members of the Commons, that depends on the Review Body under Lord Boyle. As for the last point, I do not think it depends on anyone because it is not under discussion at present.

Butter Pats

Mr. English: asked the Lord President of the Council what is the country of origin of the new intake of butter pats.

Dr. Bennett: I have been asked to reply.
It is English.

Mr. English: Does the hon. Gentleman not think that the fact that he has not mentioned that it is also a quarter less in weight and that he is selling it at the same price proves that European butter is often more expensive than Australian and New Zealand butter? Would he tell us, now that he is advised by a company which is 50 per cent. foreign-owned, whether he proposes to alter the normal practice of this House that our food supply should come from Commonwealth or from E.F.T.A. countries?

Dr. Bennett: I suppose that we do pay extra for the extra quality as a result of its being English. I suppose that is good enough.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the meeting with the European Community which I attended in Luxembourg on 7th June.
This meeting recorded agreement on three important matters and made useful progress in discussion of a number of other outstanding questions.
First, exports of sugar from the developing Commonwealth countries. The House will recall that when I reported on the previous Ministerial meeting with the European Community on 17th May I said that the Community had made a proposal regarding the developing Commonwealth countries whose interests are at present covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. I made it clear then to the Community that Her Majesty's Government would need to consult the other Commonwealth Governments concerned before replying to the Community's proposal. A meeting of the Commonwealth Governments concerned was held accordingly in London on 2nd and 3rd June. I was able to explain to them that the firm assurance which the Community had proposed met their anxieties and interests, and the meeting agreed on a communique, which, with permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. On the basis of the statement included in the communique, the Commonwealth representatives agreed to accept the Community's proposal.
I informed the Community accordingly in Luxembourg on 7th June. At the same time, the Community made clear its position regarding imports of sugar from India, which is a party to the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, and whose interests will be covered under the arrangements agreed earlier for Commonwealth developing countries in Asia.
These exchanges mean that the essential question of sugar from developing Commonwealth countries has been satisfactorily resolved. This represents a very substantial and satisfactory achievement.
Secondly, the House will recall that I reported on 17th May that agreement

had been reached on satisfactory arrangements for the continued import of certain important raw materials for British industry. The problem of alumina was the only one left outstanding. This has now been settled. With permission, I will circulate the details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
The third question on which agreement was reached was monetary matters. The future of sterling is not strictly speaking an issue in the negotiations The Six have, however, expressed interest in the problems which would arise from the inclusion of a major reserve currency in an enlarged Community progressing towards closer economic and monetary union. We on our side have made clear our readiness to envisage an orderly and gradual reduction of official sterling balances after our accession, but we have also made clear that three conditions would need to be satisfied. First, any proposal would have to be acceptable to official holders of sterling, who would need an alternative reserve asset. Secondly, it should not impose an unacceptable burden on our own resources and balance of payments. Third, it should promote the stability of the international monetary system.
In my statement in Luxembourg I reiterated that we were prepared to envisage an orderly and gradual run-down of official sterling balances after our accession. I undertook that after our accession we should be ready to discuss what measures might be appropriate to achieve a progressive alignment of the external characteristics of, and practices in relation to, sterling with those of other currencies in the Community in the context of progress towards economic and monetary union in the enlarged Community. I said that we were confident that official sterling could be handled in a way which would enable us to take our full part in that progress. I also said that in the meantime we should manage our policies with a view to stabalising the official balances in a way which would be consistent with these longer-term objectives.
The Community took note of my statement with satisfaction and expressed their acceptance of our suggestions about the way in which this matter should be handled. It is, therefore, no longer an issue between us.


In addition to these matters on which agreement was reached on 7th June, I took the opportunity to explain to the Community the very great importance which we attached to a satisfactory agreement regarding fisheries. What we have asked for is a categoric statement that the present common fisheries policy would be modified after enlargement to meet the circumstances and needs of a Community of Ten. In addition we want a clear understanding from the start that there would be adequate protection for our inshore fishing grounds in particular. We have proposed that this could be secured by reserving exclusive fishing rights within six-mile limits—drawn from the base lines that were agreed at the 1964 European Fisheries Convention—together with an establishment clause which would be worked out to ensure that only vessels genuinely based on our ports and fishing from them could operate within these limits.
We consider this to be a safe and reasonable approach given our existing position and that of the Six, who already possess historic fishing rights of one sort or another round our coast line within the six to 12 mile zone. The really important thing to remember is the base lines agreed in 1964 from which the six-mile limit would be drawn, as this means protection of such important areas as the Minches, Moray Firth, Clyde, Cardigan Bay, Morecambe Bay, Solway Firth and the Wash.
The Conference agreed on procedures for considering this question.
Finally, I drew attention to the need to agree on machinery for the new member countries, if they were to join the Communities, to be closely associated with all aspects of Community development and activity in the period, which could cover a number of months, between the signature of an accession treaty and its entry into force. It is clear that all concerned have an interest in making satisfactory provision for this period, since both existing and prospective members of the Community will wish to ensure that the development of the Community's policies during this period will proceed in a manner acceptable to all.
We confirmed that the next meeting with the Community at Ministerial level would take place on 21st to 22nd June.

Mr. Harold Lever: I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that while we welcome his reserving the fisheries problem we will treat this as a fairly interim statement and will expect a full report to the House on the further details. In the meantime, will he keep in mind the exchanges yesterday on the question of the six and 12 miles limits as relevant to this problem?
So far as the sterling area is concerned, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has eventually got round to conceding that this will have to be discussed and cleared up before the negotiations can be put out of the way. Though he has done this belatedly, there is very little in his statement which appears to give information to the House about what he really has in mind. May I now ask him what are the suggestions referred to in his statement which he had made about the way in which the matter should be handled and in relation to which the Community took note of his statement with satisfaction? Could the House know what the suggestions were so that it can express its satisfaction or dissatisfaction?
In particular, too, could he tell us what relevance his statement has about his willingness to undertake "an orderly and gradual run-down of sterling balances"? Does this mean that there will be an annual run-down or a rundown at regular intervals in the sterling balances? If so, how does he reconcile that with the condition which he makes that these matters should be dealt with in a way which would "not impose an unacceptable burden on our own resources and balance of payments"? Could we have those points cleared up?

Mr. Rippon: As far as the fisheries policy is concerned, I will, of course, report further in the light of the progress we make in the negotiations.
I think that what I have said about sterling is clear and in line with what we have said before. We have no preconceived ideas. All these matters are for discussion after our accession in the light of developments.

Mr. Albu: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the members of the Six recognise that a reserve currency can be a considerable burden and should be more widely shared? Can


he say whether any time limit was discussed for the running down of sterling balances?

Mr. Rippon: No—none of these matters.

Mr. William Clark: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there is a growing feeling in the country that the negotiations are becoming rather meaningless? Is he aware that public opinion is that the Government, at the end of the day, intend to recommend entry? Would it not be better for the Government to reaffirm clearly to the country that in no circumstances will they recommend entry unless it is to the advantage of this country?

Mr. Rippon: We certainly would not recommend entry unless it was to the advantage of this country. That has been the purpose of both this Government and the last in the negotiations. My hon. Friend is being less than fair on this. There would have been great criticism in the House if I had not been able to make the firm and clear statement I have made today.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I have three questions. The first concerns sugar. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether the Community accepted the statement which he made to the Commonwealth countries concerned, which accepted it in turn? If not, does he agree that at the conference with the Commonwealth countries there was a bilateral British Government assurance? Will he tell us whether he interprets this as meaning that if the Six do not deliver on the lines expected and hoped for the British Government will then insist on maintaining the safeguards under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement?
Secondly, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has no doubt read the article in the Guardian this morning about steel. Can he repudiate that article and give an assurance that the Community has not demanded that there should be no further expansion or modernisation of the assets and scale of the British Steel Corporation? If there have been statements of this kind, will he tell us when he last informed the House about them?
Thirdly, there is the question of sterling. The right hon. and learned

Gentleman has said very little about this, although the Press has had a great deal of comment—I do not know whether it arose from briefing in Brussels by the Six or whether through introspection. The suggestion has been made that what is in the minds of the Six, if not in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's mind, is that there should be a funding of our formidable sterling balances which should then be paid off over a period of years out of our surpluses. If that is so, would not this place a heavy burden on our balance of payments, even forcing deflationary policies over the years? Will he confirm that this has not been discussed or put forward as a means of reaching agreement? If he has not got an idea in his head—to use his phrase—will the Chancellor of the Exchequer make a statement to the House next week?

Mr. Rippon: As I promised the Commonwealth Sugar Conference, I communicated the text of the communiqué to the Community and they received it. That was all that was necessary. The Six have given a very firm assurance.
I have not read the article about steel in The Guardian today. It is news to me.
That aspect of the quesion of sterling did not arise, and if the right hon. Gentleman has any questions about what may happen in future or in the light of developments, these are really for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman answer my last two questions? Obviously he has not had time to read the article in The Guardian. Will he do so and make a statement as to whether these matters have been discussed with him and with the Coal and Steel Community and whether any commitments have been asked for or given, and, if so, why the House has not been told in earlier reports? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is able to give a total repudiation of the story, which seems to have some degree of authenticity on the face of it, we will naturally accept his assurance. These are statements referring to alleged discussions between him and the Community.


On the question of sterling, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must have been consulted in this matter, will make a statement to the House at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Rippon: I have said that there are matters for my right hon. Friend which he will deal with. My statement today has dealt simply with how we have handled the matter in the negotiations and I have said that we have not been tied down in this way in the negotiations. I have not read the article, which is news to me. I have given no commitment of that kind. When dealing with the question of arrangements with the Coal and Steel Community, I will, of course, report to the House.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chair is in a difficult position. So many right hon. and hon. Members wish to ask supplementary questions. I intend to give preference to those I did not call on the occasions of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster's last statement and of the Prime Minister's statement a week later. I may make mistakes but I will do my best.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: Can my right hon. and learned Friend tell us what circumstances have altered since 1964, when the then Conservative Government put on a 12-mile fishing limit? Secondly, can he say why it is that he will not say categorically, either here or in Brussels, that the whole of the E.E.C. fishing policy is unacceptable to our inshore fishing industry? Will not he say now that we must get the terms negotiated before and not after entry?

Mr. Rippon: I ask my hon. Friend to await the outcome of our discussions at the next meeting. I do not think that anyone has said necessarily that the whole fisheries policy is unacceptable. In so far as it relates to marketing or conservation, there may be parts that we welcome and that are more in line with our own practice in any event. There has been some misunderstanding about conditions within the Six in relation to the 12-mile limit. I do not think that we can ask for an actual improvement in our present position. When we introduced the 12-mile limit,

it had to do with historical rights. We would not envisage this being extended.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that I am lost in wonderment and admiration at the way he is embarking on this act of faith? Does not his vague statement, about satisfactory arrangements, decisions on safeguards, reserving Britain's position on one important issue after the other, really mean that he is saying to the British people, "Let us jump into the water blindfold, boys, and hope that it is not too cold or too deep"?

Mr. Rippon: It is not like that at all. What is important to the House and the country is that we should not be committed to policies on which we may wish to express a view until we are a member. When we are a member, all these problems can be dealt with by us as a member. Therefore, there will be no commitment of any kind as far as we are concerned in respect of matters which are for discussion and decision after entry.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Too late.

Mr. Hordern: Will my right hon. and learned Friend say more about the sterling balances? Will he say precisely what he means by a gradual, orderly rundown of the sterling balances within the context of economic and monetary integration, which, as he knows, the E.E.C. is at present planning to do by 1980? Is it supposed that the sterling balances should be reduced by a strict timetable by that date? Will he also undertake to include in the White Paper, which we understand to be forthcoming, reference to the procedure by which the sterling balances will be dealt with?

Mr. Rippon: No particular procedure has been laid down or commitment of that kind made. Whatever is done will be done in relation to the three criteria to which I referred in my statement. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in his statement of 20th May, all these questions really arise within the context of co-ordination of policies after our entry.

Mr. Prentice: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he communicated to the Six the text of the agreement reached with the Commonwealth leaders on sugar. Will he explain


the significance of the fact that he did not even attempt to get the Six to accept that interpretation?

Mr. Rippon: What I did was to tell the Community what had happened, as I explained at my last meeting I would do after consultation with the Commonwealth sugar producing countries. I communicated the results to the Six and circulated the text. Part of the statement made by the conference which I had with Commonwealth Governments said:
The British Government and other Commonwealth Governments participating regard this offer as a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community on fair terms for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in respect of all its existing developing member countries. The developing Commonwealth countries will continue to plan their future production on this basis.
That is what I told the Community.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: As some doubt has been cast by some hon. Members opposite on the authenticity and validity of the Community's endorsement of what my right hon. and learned Friend has achieved, would he not agree that it is most important that the House and the country should know that at its special meeting yesterday the European Parliament, jointly with the Assembly of the Council of Europe, agreed that he had made outstanding and very welcome progress? This fact appears to have been completely ignored by the British Press, but it should be known and it is a matter of the greatest encouragement to us all.

Mr. Rippon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that comment. Whatever view people may take of these negotiations as a whole, I would have thought that no hon. Member would not welcome the firm safeguards for the developing countries of the Commonwealth for what they have already, and also the safeguards, which those countries warmly welcome, of association or trade agreements which will give them further opportunities to raise their standards of living by access to a market of 300 million people.

Mr. John Mendelson: With reference to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reading into the record the agreement that he reached with the developing countries' representatives, will he now report to the House that shortly afterwards, after

it had been said by the representatives of the Six that they noted what he said, a spokesman for the Commission said that this, of course, was binding on the British Government only? He has not yet reported that to the House today.
Secondly, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now accept that the French Government, as authoritatively reported from Paris, have already informed the other Five that in the discussion on New Zealand's position on 22nd June they intend to insist that they will allow an extension of the transitional period by one or at the most two years only on condition that the United Kingdom Government bind themselves to no further expansion of the market for New Zealand in this country after the seven years are over? Will he now give a categorical assurance that in no circumstances will he accept these views when they are put to him on 22nd June?

Mr. Rippon: As usual, the hon. Gentleman's sources of information are carefully and inaccurately selected.

Mr. Biffen: In relation to what my right hon. and learned Friend said about progress towards monetary union, could he say whether he made it clear to our prospective partners in the discussions at Brussels that we retain for ourselves the option of floating sterling should that be thought desirable?

Mr. Rippon: That did not arise at all.

Mr. Milne: Is Britain's chief negotiator aware that from his travels to Luxembourg and Brussels he has probably brought back less than he would have done by staying at home? Two points need to be clarified. They are the question of Commonwealth sugar and the question of the agreement with the Community negotiators on this matter. Did negotiations take place, or did he report that he had got the Commonwealth countries to accept his interpretation of the agreement? Is it not the case that he promised us at the outset of the negotiations that there would be safeguards and guarantees but that on each occasion he has reported from Brussels there has been evidence of neither?

Mr. Rippon: The hon. Gentleman's opening sentence indicates that he does


not approach this matter in a wholly unbiassed way. I cannot help it if he persistently refuses to accept the firm assurances of the Community reached in negotiations and endorsed by the developing countries which are most concerned when he is not.

Mr. Blaker: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there will be a wide welcome for the improved atmosphere of confidence and trust which is evident in the negotiations which owes a great deal to the visit of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the French President and to my right hon. and learned Friend's efforts in Brussels? Is he satisfied that the Six countries understand how important it is from the point of view of public opinion in Britain that there should be a satisfactory and fair solution of the remaining problems?

Mr. Rippon: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said nothing about regional policy, and I cannot recall him saying anything significant about it on an earlier occasion. May we take it that this is yet another of his throw-away lines?

Mr. Rippon: No. Obviously the hon. and learned Gentleman has not read what has been said on earlier occasions.

Mr. Warren: While I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement on the progress concerning fishing, may I ask him to take the negotiation discussions a stage further by trying to get the Common Market countries to recognise that we have about a six-year lead in conservation in fishing in this country and that this is something to which they should accede rather than that we should try to trade with them?

Mr. Rippon: We shall in no circumstances change our conservation policy.

Mr. Kelley: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that there has been no agreement to accept the ratio production quotas on steel and coal? Will he tell the House exactly what is implied for steel and coal in the agreement that has been reached?

Mr. Rippon: Agreement on our accession to the European Coal and Steel

Community has not been reached. I will report to the House when it has.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is it not only a couple of months since the Government said that the position of sterling formed no part of the negotiations? Why, then, since the Elysée meeting have we suddenly come to this abject and humiliating surrender? Have the Government reached the point of commitment when no price is too high to pay and every broken-winded collapse is represented as a major break-through.

Mr. Rippon: I think that on reflection, much as he may regret it, my hon. and learned Friend will find that that is not true. Our position has been fully safeguarded in the matters with which I have been dealing. We have always made it clear that there were certain matters which arose in the context of the negotiations, and there were other matters concerning sterling which were for discussion, and we have had some discussion.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: May I pursue the matter of sterling? Clearly an important change in the rôle of sterling was envisaged. I believe that this can well be very beneficial to this country and, on the whole, may even be more welcome to many of my hon. Friends, whatever their view about the E.E.C., than perhaps to some hon. Members opposite. But what he does, I regret to say—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] If the House will allow me to continue for a moment. What the right hon. and learned Gentleman does. I regret to say, is to cloak the matter in a combination of carelessness and mysteriousness, I am sure by accident. I therefore hope that he and his right hon. Friends will consider very carefully—and this should be kept separate from the negotiations as such—whether a fuller statement should be made to the House by him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Prime Minister, on how they foresee the future of sterling in the new circumstances?

Mr. Rippon: I recognise the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties in this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am not being difficult. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheap."] I recognise the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties in this matter. I hope that he will accept that if I have not made the matter clear it was by accident. It is a


difficult and complex subject which we discussed on 20th and 21st January and on which successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have expressed opinions. All I can say today—and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will understand this—is what happened in Brussels and that we have no preconceived ideas on this matter. If further details about the handling of these matters in future in the light of what developments may take place can be given, that is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that many of us on this side of the House do not share the atavistic views of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) on the subject of sterling and congratulate him on the admirable settlements he has reached on sterling and sugar? However, is he aware that it is not altogether easy to understand why the Foreign Office chose to abandon the 12-mile fisheries limit before the negotiations were even joined? Does he agree that the fisheries position announced by the Foreign Office spokesman last week is the extreme limit of negotiation on this point?

Mr. Rippon: I think that we have made our position clear. As I explained, there never was an absolute right to a 12-mile limit because of the historic rights. But it will be understood when the matter is finally dealt with that we have had that point very much in mind and that we intend to seek arrangements which will safeguard the inshore fishing interests.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the suspicion is beginning to form in many minds that when he is unable to obtain what he asks for in the negotiations the tactic is that a form of words is agreed and it is said that the matter will be settled after the event, which means that we have conceded the point before the event? Is not this bound to cause considerable dissatisfaction on both sides of the House? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the House will want something very different before he comes before us with his White Paper?

Mr. Rippon: It means the exact opposite of what the hon. Gentleman has suggested.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Acknowledging what my right hon. and learned Friend has endeavoured to do for what he described as the 3 million Europeans in New Zealand, may I ask him whether the position of Australia and Canada has been considered? Is it simply proposed immediately to substitute Community preference for Commonwealth preference, or would an enlarged Community make special trade arrangements with these other European countries?

Mr. Rippon: There has been a lot of discussion on matters which affect Canada and Australia, particularly in the context of the import of raw materials from Canada and Australia. Australia is very much affected by the agreement announced today on the subject of alumina. On other matters, we have, in the context of the transitional arrangements for agriculture, agreed with the Community that if difficulties should arise there is machinery for dealing with them. Concerning third country suppliers, we have been concerned to safeguard the interests of traditional suppliers, notably those to which my hon. Friend has referred—Canada and Australia.

Mr. David Clark: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicate what guarantee he can offer the Australian sugar producers, 20 per cent. of whose production is exported to this country, after 1974?

Mr. Rippon: There was special reference to Australia in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, with different arrangements for dealing with the quota of sugar from Australia. We have fully preserved the contractual rights of Australia until 1974, and thereafter consideration will have to be given to the position in the light of the transitional arrangements. The Commonwealth Sugar Conference recorded what would be our view—that regard will have to be paid to the renegotiation of the International Sugar Agreement, which runs out in 1973.

Sir F. Bennett: Reverting, without apology, to the question of fisheries, I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend can confirm one thing. I think that most of us accept that we cannot possibly do better than get agreement on the six to twelve mile limit. Can my right hon. and learned Friend say


categorically that we shall not go below the six-mile limit? If he can, I think that he would put a lot of minds at rest. Secondly, on another topic about which I asked him on a previous occasion when he promised to say something the next time he spoke in the House, can he say something about the Channel Islands, which are not represented in the House but which deserve to have their interests aired here?

Mr. Rippon: We have always accepted that the question of the Channel Islands will have to be raised. I will report to the House in due course. I have been in consultation with the interests concerned from time to time. I think that I have made it clear that we put forward our position on fisheries on the basis of the position today.

Dr. Gilbert: In the light of the Prime Minister's assurance that the conclusion of the negotiations would not result in the reintroduction of trade barriers anywhere in Europe, could the right hon. and learned Gentleman, for the benefit of the House, make a comparison concerning the position of the E.F.T.A. countries which are not parties to the present negotiations and which would, if no trade barriers are raised, presumably have free access to the industrial markets of the Community and vice versa? What advantages might accrue to this country over and above those which would accrue to the E.F.T.A. countries which are not parties to the negotiations? Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman compare that with the costs which we are incurring when they are getting these benefits for nothing?

Mr. Rippon: That is not a correct statement of the position. I reported to the House on 17th May, not only about my meeting with the Council of Ministers in Brussels but about my subsequent meeting with the E.F.T.A. Ministers in Reykjavik, where they all expressed satisfaction with the progress we were making in the negotiations. We reached agreement about how we should proceed together. Some of us are working for full membership, some for various forms of association in the context of neutrality. All these things are going forward, and we are in very close consultation.

Mr. John E. B. Hill: Looking forward to the next Ministerial meeting, can my

right hon. and learned Friend say to what extent the French Government, together with the other members of the Six, have come to accept that New Zealand is a European country in the Southern Hemisphere and that therefore a European and lasting solution is required for what is a European problem?

Mr. Rippon: We have lost no opportunity of explaining the position of New Zealand and the importance of the problems which we have to consider. The Community has accepted that New Zealand is a special case for which special solutions must be found.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman seen the deeply anguished statement by the Prime Minister of Queensland about the progress of the negotiations? Does he agree that it is disquieting that there should be a deep sense of impending betrayal among so many representative Australians? Does he agree that we must safeguard our trade with Australia, as with other countries, which he has not mentioned in the negotiations?

Mr. Rippon: When I visited Australia I found no deep sense of impending betrayal. We indicated then the way in which we would seek to safeguard Australian interests, and that is the policy which I have consistently pursued.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: Has my right hon. and learned Friend had any conversations with the Australian and other Commonwealth Governments on the question of sterling? Secondly, the Conservative position was that we would look after Commonwealth interests, and it is not good enough to say that Queensland sugar can look after itself after 1974.

Mr. Rippon: It has always been made clear that, whenever the interests of sterling area countries are affected, they will be consulted.

Mr. Jay: If the Minister really believes that the Six accept his interpretation of the sugar agreement, why did he not ask them to confirm this?

Mr. Rippon: It would have been rather an insult—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—to ask them to put a gloss on a firm assurance that we have all understood and which is part of the negotiation proper. Otherwise, one would never end putting


up various propositions which people would ask one to interpret.

Mr. Sandys: Following upon a point raised by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), is it not a fact that the large sterling balances which have exposed the £ to abnormal international speculation have over the years proved quite as much a liability as an asset? Is it not, therefore, quite apart from the Common Market negotiations, to our advantage to consider the gradual phasing out of the reserve rôle of sterling?

Mr. Rippon: That is certainly a view which has been advanced on both sides of the House from time to time.

Mr. W. T. Price: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman's latest report is a fair indication of what the House might expect to emerge as the final package deal, would it not be better if he stayed at home in future? Has he become so punch drunk by his many visits to Europe in recent months as to become insensitive to the deep and growing concern on both sides of this honourable House that this policy is mainly one of creep, crawl and surrender? Not only are there sufficient of us in this House to make this policy unacceptable, but outside the House there are millions of our fellow citizens who will never be ridden by this package deal which the Government have in mind.

Mr. Rippon: I have the impression that the hon. Gentleman would say that whatever statement I made to the House. I ask the hon. Gentleman to read the statement made by his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on 2nd May, 1967, on which these negotiations are based.

Mr. Turton: Does my right hon. and learned Friend realise that he owes a duty to the House to give the details of what he offered on sterling? In particular, has he agreed to surrender the privileged position of Australia and New Zealand in raising money on the London market, and if so, from what date?

Mr. Rippon: No, Sir, we did not discuss details of this kind. I have not misled the House in any way. In my statement on the future of sterling I made it clear in the context of what I said

that these will all be matters for discussion after our entry and in the context of progress towards co-ordination of our policies in the longer term.

Mr. Shore: Among all the mysteries of the afternoon, is it not at least clear that the orderly and progressive rundown of the sterling balances to which the Minister referred must entail an additional burden on the balance of payments on top of all the other burdens which we already know will be heaped? Secondly, is it not clear that the Minister has again accepted the French view that the continuation of the sterling system and the sterling obligations is not compatible with the French view of a European Europe? Finally, will he give an assurance that no secret agreements have been entered into between the Prime Minister and the President, or whoever it may be, concerning the rate at which we might be asked to run down the sterling balances?

Mr. Rippon: There has been no agreement of a secret nature of any kind. I have made it clear that no method has been suggested for the run-down of the sterling balances and that this is a matter for discussion after accession. I remind the House that we have also made it clear that three conditions would need to be satisfied even then. The first is that any proposal would have to be acceptable to official holders of sterling who would need an alternative reserve asset; secondly, it should not impose an unacceptable burden on our resources and balance of payments; and thirdly, it should promote stability of the international monetary system. Our view is still the view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition when he spoke at Guildhall on 29th July last year.
Two years ago I made it clear that we were prepared to discuss—it was indeed in Luxembourg—to discuss and of course in a meaningful sense, progress in currency matters, not excluding as an ultimate aim a common European currency.
That may be very far in the future, but all these matters will be discussed after accession in the context of what progress we are able to make towards economic and monetary union.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has twice quoted me. I do not recall saying either at


Guildhall or anywhere else that we would discuss all these matters after entry. While the right hon. and learned Gentleman has repeatedly given the impression to the House that nothing whatsoever has been agreed about sterling, is he quite sure that the French have the same idea?

Mr. Rippon: Yes, Sir. I do not suppose that there is any difference of opinion about this. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister reported to the House, a clear understanding was reached between himself and President Pompidou. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman must understand that the position I have reserved for us in dealing with these matters after entry must be much stronger than anything we could do before entry.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman, no doubt through my own fault, misunderstood me. I was not referring to the statement made by the French after the talks at the Elysée; I was talking about the categorical statement by the French Minister of Finance after the Luxembourg talks. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that what he has told the House today is 100 per cent. four square with what the French Minister of Finance gave as his understanding about sterling?

Mr. Rippon: We were clear in our understanding in Luxembourg, that is certain; I do not know what the French Minister may have said thereafter.

The following are the Communiqué and the details of the treatment of alumina:

Communiqué issued after consultations with the developing member countries of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, 2nd-3rd June.

Representatives of the Governments of the United Kingdom, Antigua, Barbados, Fiji, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Mauritius, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, British Honduras, and of the East African Community and the Caribbean Free Trade Association met at Lancaster House from 2nd to 3rd June, 1971. In the light of consultations that took place, Commonwealth Ministers agreed on the following statement:
The Governments represented expressed their satisfaction at the Community's readiness to offer the Governments concerned a choice of forms of association or a trading agreement; and also at the readiness to recognise the United Kingdom's contractual commitments to

all the C.S.A. member countries up to the end of 1974.
They noted that, in negotiations with the enlarged Community on association or trading agreements, it would be open to the Governments concerned to act individually or collectively. They further noted that the negotiations were due to be concluded by 1975, and that pending conclusion their existing patterns of trade with the United Kingdom would be maintained.
There was a full discussion of the Community's offer made on sugar after 1974. The British Delegation assured other delegations that the Community's proposals constituted a specific and moral commitment by the enlarged Community, of which the United Kingdom would be a part. The British Government and other Commonwealth Governments participating regard this offer as a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community on fair terms for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in respect of all its existing developing member countries. The developing Commonwealth countries will continue to plan their future on this basis.
On this basis, Commonwealth Ministers agreed to accept the Community's proposal and stated that they would proceed accordingly, it being further agreed that Mr. Rippon would so inform the Council of Ministers of the European Community at their forthcoming Ministerial meeting with the United Kingdom, and would communicate to the Community the text of the agreed statement.
In the course of the meeting, Mr. Rippon gave the assurance that it would be the firm policy of the British Government to ensure that the proposall of the Community would be implemented in accordance with the statement recorded above in the event of the United Kingdom joining the European Community.
While recognising that the present meeting was concerned with the arrangements to apply to the developing Commonwealth sugar producers after Britain's entry into an enlarged Community, the Government Representatives stressed the importance of a continuing and viable international sugar agreement to all sugar producing countries. They expressed the hope that the enlarged Community would participate actively to this end.

THE TARIFF TREATMENT OF ALUMIN

At the Ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on 7th June the Community agreed to the following arrangement on alumina. The Common External Tariff on alumina would be suspended from its current level of 8·8 per cent. to 5·5 per cent. Imports of alumina into the United Kingdom would be free of duty until 1st January 1976, would as from that date pay half the suspended rate, and would from 1st July 1977 pay the full 5·5 per cent. rate. But it has been recognised that in the particular circumstances of the aluminium industry we should be able at any time after entry to apply in advance for a duty free Community tariff quota for the period after 1st January 1976.

NEW MEMBERS

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath or made the Affirmation required by Law:

Richard Charles Mitchell, Esquire Member for Southampton, Itchen.

Edmund Ian Marshall, Esquire, Member for Goole.

Terence Anthony Gordon Davis, Member for Bromsgrove.

COMPANIES

4.20 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require certain companies to appoint non-executive directors; to require such directors jointly to present independent annual reports to the shareholders; and for purposes connected therewith.
When I introduced a Companies Bill in 1969 the House was good enough to give it a Second Reading and it completed the Committee stage. The object of the Bill was to bring into company law for the first time the expression "management audit". Since 1969 the need for the regular conduct of managements audits has become more apparent and more urgent.
The object of the Bill I am seeking the leave of the House to introduce is to give legal expression to the phrase "nonexecutive director" and to confer upon the non-executive director a specific function. The intention of my last Bill and of this Bill is the same; namely, to give shareholders a practical means of securing competent independent supervision of the management and the way in which their assets are being employed.
My suggestion is that large companies should have not fewer than three non-executive directors. The Bill is devised to apply to the thousand or so largest public companies. It will not define precisely the nature of the report which the non-executive directors must make. My hope is that we may safely leave it to the shareholders themselves, particularly the institutional shareholders, to make known what they expect their non-executive directors to do. The Bill therefore does not seek to increase the area of Government interference in the operation of public companies.
It is topical, and indeed relevant, to point out that the concept of the European company has been receiving study by the Commission in Brussels and that after some years of study the E.E.C. Commission has decided in favour of the adoption of the German system of supervision in which there are two boards, a supervisory board and an executive board. The Commission's report in June, 1970 to


the Council of Ministers specifically recommended that this two-tier system should be adopted. I do not think it is essential for us in Britain to copy the continental system exactly in this respect, but it is possible for us to learn from the way in which German companies are run.
The Bill is not a long one, but it could have useful consequences if it led to a separation of the functions of the non-executive and the executive directors, and to the non-executive directors asserting their influence slightly more positively than they do in many companies at present. If the House is so good as to give me leave to introduce the Bill, I recognise that at this time in the Session it has little chance of completing its stages. Nevertheless, I hope that shareholders, particularly institutional shareholders, and directors, particularly non-executive directors, will take note of the fact that this Bill has been introduced, and that they may follow the course I recommend whether or not there is a legal obligation upon them to do so.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir B. Rhys Williams, Mr. Crouch, Mr. Dodds-Parker, Mr. Emery, Mr. Ian Lloyd, Sir J. Rodgers, Mr. Scott-Hopkins and Dame Joan Vickers.

COMPANIES

Bill to provide for leave to require certain companies to appoint non-executive directors; to require such directors jointly to present independent annual reports to the shareholders; and for purposes connected therewith; presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Friday, 18th June; and to be printed. [Bill 182.]

INDIA AND EAST PAKISTAN

4.26 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): I beg to move, That this House do now adjourn.
Over the past weeks the feeling of this House and of people in this country has been deeply moved by the shocking events in Pakistan. Partial recovery from the cyclone was being achieved when this new tragedy struck. Now a difficulty faces those who give relief, whether public or private. This time the plight of the innocent is due not to a natural but to a political disaster. Basically peace will not return to East Pakistan until civil government can be restored, and I will return to that matter later. But immediately and urgently the task is to save as many people as possible from the fate which has struck them and from the diseases which threaten them and to get relief where it is needed and quickly.
Therefore, I feel that the priorities are in the following order, and I would not think there is any dispute about this. First, the relief of immediate suffering in East Pakistan and among the millions of refugees in India. Secondly, to be followed very soon—though this is not in the hands of others—by the creation of a political framework within which civil government can be restored and which will give confidence to the majority of the refugees to return home.
On the immediate relief of suffering, while we have assisted the British charities and are ready with help for the Indian Government, our view has been that it is right for the bulk of the aid to go through the United Nations, whether it is to those suffering in East Pakistan or to the refugees who have fled to India. We believe that is the way to mobilise the greatest flow of international resources with the least risk of ulterior political complications. That is also the way to see that aid from many different sources is brought together and is channelled swiftly in the right directions and distributed according to the most pressing needs. That is literally vital in areas where the facilities for distribution are so limited. The United Nations is then our considered choice for the co-ordination of all the relief work.
That machinery is now at work in the present emergency. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is in West Pakistan and his staff is in India working on the refugee problem while the special representative of the Secretary General is now in Dacca assessing the relief that is needed for East Pakistan itself and the problem of getting it to the districts where help is most required.
We all tend to feel in these situations—this has certainly been our experience over the years—that vital days are lost at the beginning of emergencies. Nobody can anticipate the nature of disasters, natural or man-made, but one can foresee and plan for certain needs which are common to all disasters—for example, the provision of medical personnel and medical supplies. I agree that a permanent organisation to cope with disaster relief would be an improvement on our present arrangements. That is why I proposed to the Secretary General of the United Nations last February that something on these lines should be established, and indeed it has been established in embryo form. I hope that the structure can be retained on a permanent basis.
We should guard against our natural impatience which sometimes in our anxiety to improve our machinery leads us to criticise the many devoted people who are now working in this field. These people are inspired by exactly the same feelings as ourselves. We should not overlook the sheer magnitude of the task and problems of setting up an administration to handle relief on this scale in another country.
I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I express our unstinted admiration for those in India at present who are carrying on in the most appalling and difficult circumstances. Our aim is to help those people to succeed in their task. I will not repeat the statement on Britain's contribution to date which I made yesterday, since it is fresh in the mind of the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) and other hon. Members, but I wish to repeat that the aid which we have subscribed was and is all designed to make sure that there should be no shortage of money for the United Nations. They should be enabled to get quickly on to the job and to go right ahead in mobilising the relief

that is required. I hope that by our action and by the action of many others this has been ensured.
The £1 million which we made available right at the start has not yet been drawn down very far. The Government of India, whose efforts to cope with this disaster have been valiant, have spent a large sum of money on relief. They will in a few days be able to tell the India aid consortium how they feel this affects their own needs. I should like to know, before deciding on the figure of our further contribution to the United Nations relief operation, the nature and extent of the aid which the Indian Government feel they will require from the consortium. Meanwhile the United Nations is not immediately short of money, but I would like the House to know that we are ready to do substantially more as soon as we can assess the need and the opportunities unfold.
The same is true of the suffering in East Pakistan. I know it is the clear wish of the House and of the country that there, too, we should do as much as we possibly can. We have been pressing the Pakistan Government to open up the East to an international relief effort, and I have no doubt that U Thant's special representative will be doing the same. As soon as the way is open, we shall make a contribution to this also.
It was the policy of the Pakistan aid consortium, of which we are a member, that the greater part of all our aid to Pakistan should in future be spent in the East. This policy had the support of the Government of Pakistan. We were working together on an ambitious action programme for water and agricultural development which the World Bank prepared last year and which was meant to provide the basis for a sound economy for East Pakistan. That work, of course, has had to be unhappily halted.
We and the other donors are eager to resume work on this programme and to resume it quickly. There are other projects needed by both East and West Pakistan. For such plans, however, there must be one pre-condition: there must be a return to normal civil life, and there must be a restoration of confidence and security for the individual before the work of long term reconstruction and development can continue. I am afraid


that must be one of the penalties of what has happened up to date. That is why we have said we cannot authorise any new aid projects except in the context of a political framework into which to inject them. Projects under way must go on if they can; it would add to the waste and destruction to interrupt them. But until there is an improvement in the political situation we cannot in prudence do more.
I can understand the impatience of those who feel that a new political structure for East Pakistan should already be on the way. We have constantly impressed upon the President and his advisers that this is the only hope for the future of his country. We believe that President Yahya Khan personally desires a return to civil government and is actively working for it. In the last few days he has declared an amnesty for all those except those guilty of murder and has said that he will do everything possible to assist the return of refugees and has set up reception committees to accept any refugees who may return.
While the wounds of civil war are still open the task is one of immense difficulty. Nevertheless a plan must be launched for a new political structure which will attract East Pakistani cooperation and the plan ought to be launched with as little delay as possible.
To compound the problem, which faces everybody in the sub-continent, there has started a new chapter in the long history of tension between Pakistan and India. There are deep emotions and fears and mistrust. We all recognise in this House how necessary is restraint. The Government of India have exercised great restraint and we are certain that this will continue, otherwise the dangers of war between Pakistan and India would be very real and this would convert what is already a tragedy into a catastrophe.
In the eagerness to see a political settlement, it has been suggested that this could be imposed either by a combination of external powers or perhaps through the Security Council. Help can be given if it is requested and I have just told the House how constantly we have been giving advice to the President, which I hope is useful. Influence can certainly be exerted by judicious advice but the plain truth is that the only action to end the tragedy and to reverse the river of refugees is a settlement contributed by,

agreed by, and worked by the Pakistanis themselves. That is why we are so anxious that the President should announce, as soon as he possibly can, a return to a civil administration. That alone will offer hope to the people of East Pakistan.
I think the House will realise, from what I have said, that we mean to give all the help that we can, that our main channel must be the United Nations, that we must wait to see what the Indian Government will require at the meeting of the consortium next week, and that we shall be faced with another request for help to East Pakistan to resettle the people there. At best this will be a continuing process for some time. The flight of the refugees will not be easily arrested. There are the aid consortia meetings for both India and Pakistan, and there is the possible aid, for which we should be preparing now, which may be needed later in the year if accounts of the shortfall in the rice crop in East Pakistan are true. These will all be calls on our resources, apart altogether from the funds that we make available to the United Nations. To all those ends we shall offer help, with all the generosity in our power, as soon as opportunities arise.

4.41 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: I think we are grateful for all that the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has said. This is not the first time that we have debated this subject in the House. We debated it about four weeks ago, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have consistently expressed their deep concern about the issue. It is right that we should have a little longer today to debate the subject, because we have reached a point in the depth and scale of this disaster and the suffering involved when there are some things that we would like to probe and question at greater length than is possible by question and answer across the Floor of the House.
We start from the understanding that we are all equally committed in the urgency of our anxiety, and our anxiety is largely that we should be able to feel that we in Britain are doing every possible thing that we can to help effectively. More than that, obviously, we cannot do. Both sides of the House, the public, the voluntary organisations—and I sustain every word that the right hon. Gentleman


said about the effort, work and devotion that they are putting into the present situation—the Press and the television—both of which have been at their most responsible and most effective in informing us all so fully and sharply about the changing situation in East Pakistan and India—are united in their approach to the problem.
I should like, first, to consider the questions of money and of timing. I wonder whether I might briefly go over the events of the last two or three months. We heard, first, in the middle of April about the stream of refugees pouring into East Bengal, and it was in April that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) visited refugee camps and brought back their reports, and since then others have been there. It was in April that the right hon. Gentleman said that the Government were ready to play a part in any international relief effort that was mounted. It was also in April that we began to be told of the enormous cost to India of caring for the refugees. It is a cost which the United Nations now estimates at more than £60 million in the next six months alone.
By the middle of May we heard from the Government of their first token amount of help—it was expressed as a token amount—of £18,000 to the charities to help them fly out supplies. By the end of May we heard about the sum of £1 million being contributed to the United Nations Relief Fund. It is now almost mid-June, and we know that up to £1 million more help has been provided by the Government by way of food supplies, transport, and covering the cost of medical supplies from charitable organisations, but we read yesterday and today that there is a grave danger that Britain is not going to be able to supply much more of the vaccine that is urgently needed to check the cholera because the manufacturers have used up most of their stocks.
There have been massive appeals for public contributions, but we see a certain lack not of effort but of the co-ordination of effort. For example, one reads today that the World Health Organisation in Geneva is not aware in any sort of detail of what the British charities are

sending to help in the relief effort, which makes it difficult for the W.H.O. to coordinate world activities. Two months after the events I think we are entitled to say that, as is so often the case, and as the right hon. Gentleman is fully aware, and has said, there has been this unendurable delay before things have really begun to swing into action.
The right hon. Gentleman says that more money will be made available, that of course the effort is not going to be limited by lack of money. I know that the right hon. Gentleman intends that the Government shall make whatever contribution is necessary to make the British effort—private and official—effective but at the same time Oxfam is reported to have said that it has spent about £140,000 since early May of which more than half has not been covered by Government help with the cost of medical supplies, and the same is probably true of the other voluntary organisations.
It is the voluntary bodies which have the expertise, the skill, the knowledge and the experience of dealing with this kind of international disaster, and they can do a superb job, but they must not for one moment feel limited in any effort that they can make by having even a fraction of anxiety about who will pay the bill at the end of the day. Moreover, it would be wise if Ministers were to meet these voluntary bodies to compare notes, to find answers to the problems that they raise, and to co-ordinate information about what is being done.
The right hon. Gentleman says that more money can be provided; but I put it to him, with respect, that it would be better if he were now to declare—as it were, pledge—a much more generous sum which can be drawn upon as needs arise, in order, first, to remove all anxiety in the public mind that money is in any way a limiting factor and, secondly, to make sure that none of the voluntary organisations feels itself handicapped by any consideration of money.
The right hon. Gentleman will recall that just over a year ago, in all the agony of the Nigerian-Biafran relief operation, that is what was done. A sum of £5 million was made available, with more to come if it was needed. This meant that the money was available at the moment that relief was possible, at the beginning of the exercise.

Mr. Harold Wilson: On the Tuesday.

Mrs. Hart: Yes. It meant that the voluntary organisations never for a moment needed to worry about money, and the public, too, knew that there need be no anxiety on that score. If at the end of the day money is to be forthcoming from the Government, I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that that would be a better way of proceeding, as it would give a great deal of reassurance to many people.
I suggest, too, that the pledge which the right hon. Gentleman makes should cover an increased contribution now to the United Nations Fund. We hear that the United States is providing £7 million, but I think it was said this morning that the figure has reached about £13 million. However, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, that is nowhere near measuring up to the economic impact upon India of the £60 million, at the minimum, that we know it will cost over the next six months. As a demonstration of the depth of our common concern, and as an example to encourage much more massive contributions from other countries, I think it would be wiser to make a further pledge now of additional aid to the United Nations, rather than to wait and let it dribble out bit by bit over a period of time, when it will be less effective in the impact that it can have on other people and in the reassurance that it can give.
As we look to the future, again, on the question of relief, I was much disturbed to hear that Dr. Boerha, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, had said on Monday that he saw no prospect of the F.A.O. being able to find enough to meet a prospective famine. This is an immensely serious thing to say, and I hope very much that when he answers the debate the Minister for Overseas Development will be able to tell us what steps the F.A.O. is taking in the matter, what steps member countries are being asked to take, and what initiative Britain will take to ensure that having overcome cholera and the immediate problems of finding somewhere for the four or five million refugees, we do not then find that we have another disaster—one of famine—which, despite the forewarning, we are not ready to meet. I hope that we may

have some reassurance about energetic steps being taken on this front.
I now turn to the question of aid and the need for a political solution. The right hon. Gentleman has emphasised yesterday and today that the cause of the whole problem is man-made. He repeated it again this afternoon. He said yesterday that the Pakistan Army was using measures to suppress the population which were intolerable to them, that this had caused the fear and the refugee problem and the disaster. All of it—cholera, death, hunger, political tension, danger to peace—is the product of man's inhumanity to man in Pakistan.
What we are asking to be reassured about—the right hon. Gentleman has given us some reassurance on it this afternoon—is that we are using our own maximum influence to get a democratic political settlement. As the right hon. Gentleman said—I was glad to hear him say it—there must be a return to normal civil life, confidence and security of the individual.
I am sure that in every possible diplomatic way the right hon. Gentleman is using all his influence in this direction. I am equally certain that he is right in what he said this afternoon about any further aid to Pakistan. He will recognise, as the House will recognise, that whatever is done about further aid to Pakistan is done or is not done against a background of a serious and even further deteriorating economic crisis in Pakistan.
I do not want to go into detail on this—I said it, as did others of my hon. Friends, in the House three weeks ago—but there is a desperate shortage of foreign exchange, a need for the rescheduling of debts. There is the appeal made by Pakistan for emergency credit to the World Bank, as a result of which the World Bank apparently said, "No, not at the moment; we have to report, look and see what is happening." The Bank has had its team in Pakistan, and this team will be reporting to the aid consortium meeting on the 21st of this month.
The essential point we have to grasp is that in a situation of this kind aid cannot be neutral, if it is continued normally. If further pledges on project aid


were to be made at the consortium meeting in the absence of a return to normal civil life, this would be providing assistance—this is perhaps particularly true of any emergency credit which is given—to pay for the war, a war whose consequences we are now seeing.
So we must recognise that development, in its true sense, cannot occur unless in these conditions. It demands a secure base of confidence; it cannot be administered in a situation which is, in effect, one of guerrilla warfare coming from villages in Pakistan. I support the right hon. Gentleman in his belief that there must be no question of further aid, other than money for relief operations, until there obtain conditions of peace, normal civil life, confidence and security.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there is a potential danger to peace, and I was glad to hear him say this. Clearly, none of us can see this any longer as an internal conflict in Pakistan. It has spilled over the borders of Pakistan. There is now, we read to our distress this morning, some evidence of clashes within India. Some time ago it was reported that there had been a confrontation of Indian and Pakistani troops along the border. Mrs. Gandhi is under heavy pressure from some in India on the question.
I should like to quote something which one of the most superb of the correspondents reporting from India has told us. Peter Hazelhurst said in The Times as long ago as 27th May:
For the present the world can be thankful for the forbearance and wisdom of the Nehru family.
The right hon. Gentleman talked of the Indian restraint.
So far India has, at a tremendous cost to her economy, exercised great restraint and has not been tempted to march into East Pakistan to restore order.
The temptation is certainly great, but Mrs. Gandhi, the Prime Minister, knows that if she is forced to take the ultimate step she could engulf the whole of South Asia and perhaps the great powers in war.
China would certainly come to Pakistan's aid if India marched into East Bengal and this would immediately bring in Russia as India's main ally.
I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that there now exists a very real threat to international peace. The right hon.

Gentleman said yesterday, in answer to a question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury, that he would be prepared to discuss this with the Indian Foreign Minister when he comes next week and to discuss the question of raising the issue in the Security Council. Yesterday the right hon. Gentleman said that any question of raising the matter in the Security Council would be for India or Pakistan, but I am sure he recognises that, against the historical background here, it is impossible that India herself could raise this issue. I hope he will give further consideration to this. The international community would be unwise to ignore the tension that is constituting a very real danger to peace in terms of the consequences which could flow if the worst should happen.
Finally, one word about the longer-term issue of international machinery to deal with disasters. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has told us about his memorandum to U Thant on this question, which will be discussed, no doubt with other views from other countries, by the Economic and Social Council in July. I must tell him with respect, that I do not think that his proposals go far enough.
First of all, the right hon. Gentleman proposes, in his paper, that only natural disasters should be covered. He says that, perhaps later, the proposal can be extended to cover man-made disasters. In the light of this situation, and in the light of the Nigeria-Biafra situation, we are bound to recognise that some of the worst human tragedies are man-made, as distinct from being due to natural disasters. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this point, and to consider whether, before the E.C.O.S.O.C. meeting in July, he would not amend his proposal so that it does cover man-made as well as natural disasters.
Second, he thinks a special fund of the U.N. is not needed for this kind of purpose; but, given the time gap from the mid-April influx of refugees to the mid-June offers of money which are now being received at the U.N., I hope he will reconsider this. The existing working capital of the U.N. which can be drawn off for emergency aid is about £60,000. That is not enough to operate the running concern of relief, and it is not good enough


to have to wait until the contributions come in, which inevitably takes a good deal of time when member countries have to respond to an appeal. So, again, he should be suggesting that a special fund be set up, or, otherwise, that the capital fund which can be drawn on should be considerably enlarged for this purpose. Either would do.
Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman proposes a disaster relief co-ordinator, with a small staff and a committee, but he does not propose that there should be stockpiles other than those which individual nations might individually choose to accumulate. He does not ask that the disaster relief agency should itself have stockpiles, or should itself internationally earmark supplies or transport or personnel, all of which are essential to avoid delay. To sum up, the right hon. Gentleman's proposals are the beginning, but they go nowhere near far enough to meet the kind of frustrations that we have seen in our experiences of disasters.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I will, of course, consider any points and suggestions that the right hon. Lady makes. If an organisation of this kind is set up, it will, I take it, study these matters and recommend what it wants, so that I do not in the least wash out the possibility of stockpiles and so on.

Mrs. Hart: I am glad to hear that, but the difficulty is that in his Memorandum the right hon. Gentleman seems rather specific on these matters. Perhaps he should look at the Memorandum again to see whether he should give greater latitude in the consideration of these issues.
Clearly, whatever we do about long-term plans cannot reduce the enormity of this tragedy. The least we can do, and all we can do now, is to be sure that we are doing enough and are organising what we are doing as effectively as possible, including the bringing to bear of the maximum pressure to restore decent conditions in Pakistan.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said, and I hope that in the course of the debate my hon. Friends will take the opportunity to raise additional points that they may have and press some of those that we have already made.

5.1 p.m.

Mr. David Lane: I am glad of this opportunity to voice briefly the horror and concern that many of my constituents feel. I believe the great majority of the public welcome and approve the leading part which the Government have played in mobilising international effort through the United Nations.
In my constituency there has been an immediate response, both by voluntary organisations and by the public, to the appeals for funds and other help. I am certain that there will be wide support in the country for whatever further initiatives and measures the Government may be able to take, even if the eventual cost to Britain is many millions of £s.
Many hon. Members will have received anguished letters from their constituents. I applaud everything my right hon. Friend has said, both inside and outside the House, in the last few days, but we are all conscious that no words of ours here can match the enormity of the crisis in Bengal. I quote briefly from a letter from a woman constituent last week:
For God's sake please try and get the Government to do something more positive about East Pakistan",
and she enclosed one of the latest horrific newspaper reports.
Reflecting on the reactions from members of the public, we may sometimes feel that our imperial instincts die hard. Many people still seem inclined to think that over large areas of the world Britain is in some way responsible for everything that happens and can put everything right. This may be laudable, but it leads to a great deal of frustration.
There is a strong belief, understandably and rightly held, that we have a special responsibility to do more than our share in helping crises of this kind which affect Commonwealth countries, and this, too, is a relic of the imperial feeling of 50 or 100 years ago. But, in addition, there is today more than ever before a sense of world community in such situations.
Now, with instant communications and the immediacy of our involvement, we are seeing the emergence of a world public opinion, and I regard this as one of the most hopeful signs of our time. It is sad that there is no corresponding


diminution of what the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) called man's inhumanity to man. Nevertheless, we can feel some optimism in view of this new emergence of world public opinion.
Perhaps this has already exercised some deterrent on the outbreak of wars, large and small. I hope that it will increasingly prove to be also a deterrent to Governments who may be minded to act in their internal affairs in a way grossly offensive to world opinion at large.
Our primary concern today, as the Order Paper shows, is relief. In other words, humanity is overshadowing politics. Yet we cannot forget the events which have led up to this situation, for which the Pakistan Government will always carry a heavy responsibility.
Frankly, we in Britain should hesitate before lecturing other countries about democracy or communal harmony as long as we have the problem of Northern Irleand unsolved in our midst. However, so far as Pakistan is concerned, we are surely entitled to speak bluntly as an ally, as a fellow-member of the Commonwealth and as a major provider of international aid.
We should leave the Pakistan Government in no doubt about the revulsion of feeling in Britain, and I am glad that my right hon. Friend both yesterday and today stressed the many representations which he has already made to the Pakistan Government and the emphasis which he is putting on the need for a political settlement and for a democratic framework before further long-term aid plans can be worked out.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Is my hon. Friend implicitly saying in his condemnation of the Pakistan Government that he is prepared to see a friendly country, with which we are doubly allied, fall apart, thanks to the efforts of certain secessionist elements in that country? Does he accept that as we brought that nation to birth, we should not stand idly by and allow that sort of eventuality to occur?

Mr. Lane: I am not saying anything of the kind. It is not for me or anyone here to lay down what sort of political solution there should be. We are, however, entitled to express a view on actions

which may or may not have been taken by any Government, friendly or otherwise, particularly when so many of our constituents feel strongly about them. As my right hon. Friend said, the solution must finally be worked out in Pakistan by the Pakistanis, and I am not prejudging that in any way.
In the immediate crisis, I express three hopes. First, having made such an excellent start in a difficult, sticky situation, with considerable time elapsing before relief gained momentum, I hope that the British Government will not hesitate to take a further lead and, if necessary, commit us to doing still more.
I believe that the nation as a whole will expect and be willing to shoulder a disproportionate share of the international effort required in this particular Pakistan situation, a situation which so much concerns us because it is a Commonwealth one.
Secondly, on the question of achieving a political solution, Pakistan is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) pointed out, an independent friendly country. There are limits to what we can properly say, publicly and privately. I hope, however, the Government will interpret these limits quite widely and will continue to exert all the persuasion they can on the Pakistan Government to open up East Pakistan, so that the facts of the situation may be better known, and to act in a spirit of reconciliation. We must remember that the sooner civilian government can be restored, the smaller will be the risk of the area becoming the scene of serious international conflict.
Thirdly, I hope that all this will give a new impetus to the efforts that are being made to set up an international disaster organisation. We are conscious of the delays on this occasion, and although they have certainly not been the fault of the British Government—quite the contrary; as my right hon. Friend said yesterday, we have supplied about 40 per cent. of the total finance guaranteed, apart from help in other ways—more must be done to reduce these delays in future.
It is time to intensify pressure within the United Nations for the establishment of an international disaster organisation and, if necessary, to strengthen and elaborate the proposal which we have put


forward. Clearly, the U.N. is the right agency to operate such an organisation. This is a perfect example of the rôle for which the U.N., and only the U.N. is suited, and to which the U.N. would do well to divert some of the effort and attention that is too often wasted on issues over which it cannot hope to act effectively.
It should not be difficult now, in the light of all that has happened in this and similar disasters in recent memory, to get an effective organisation set up reasonably quickly. It must be in Asia, Africa and Latin America that the main dangers of disasters, whether natural or man-made, will continue to arise. Here we already have a United Nations presence established in the Economic Commissions for Asia, Africa and Latin America. This is a ready-made organisation on which we can build the kind of stockpiling and framework of general staff, not necessarily involving great expense, which on any future similar occasion would enable the international community to go into action with much less delay than it has so far. In other words, the time is ripe for Britain to lead a united Commonwealth campaign—this is surely a matter on which the Commonwealth could be most effective—to get decision and action by the United Nations this year. If we can do that, some good for the future may yet have come out of the ghastly suffering in Bengal today.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I find it difficult to fault the Foreign Secretary on his handling of this problem from the beginning, but I have two slight reservations. If I concentrate on those, I hope that it will not be thought that I am unmindful of the overwhelming aspect of the personal suffering of those who are at present dying or ill in East Pakistan and in West Bengal. I concentrate on the two issues in the interests of brevity.
Yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that he had been putting as much diplomatic pressure as he could on the Pakistan Government, through the High Commissioner, and that he had received assurances that the President of Pakistan was prepared to try to effect a political settlement as quickly as he could. All I ask is that in these avenues of pressure, which I recognise are the only avenues

open to the Foreign Secretary, the pressure should be directed to the only method that I can see of ever achieving any effective political settlement, that is, to release Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from imprisonment and to allow the democratic vote to have its say in East Pakistan. After all, 167 of the 169 seats were won at the last general election by the Awami League, and it ill becomes the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) to suggest that we in this House are seeking to help secessionists, when all that is being said here is that the voice of democracy should be heard in Pakistan.

Mr. Wilkinson: I was upset particularly by statements from the other side of the House which were quite clearly criticising the internal affairs of a friendly Commonwealth country. The hon. Gentleman must make the distinction here between autonomy, which is what the election was fought over, and the issue of secession, which is what extremist elements within Pakistan moved the Awami League towards in latter days. This is a clear distinction and a fundamental one which certain hon. Gentlemen opposite have been unable clearly to understand.

Mr. Lyon: I clearly understand the distinction. All I am asking is that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman should be allowed to take his proper place in the Government of Pakistan. He should not have been displaced by the action of an army which was largely controlled from West Pakistan and largely composed of West Pakistani elements. It seems that that is a negation of the democracy which has been growing fitfully in Pakistan and which we thought had come to fruition at the last general election there. I know that it is difficult for the President of Pakistan, in the light of his actions, to go back on what he has done. But it is clear from the mass exodus of refugees, now said to be about 5 million in West Bengal, that the policy he was pursuing has failed and that he has to go back upon it. He went back on a previous policy, apparently at the dictate of Mr. Bhutto. It is now clear that he has to listen to the plea coming from all those refugees who, denied the vote at the ballot box, are voting with their feet by getting out of East Pakistan. It is that kind of settlement and that alone which can effectively reach the root of this problem.


It will be possible for us, if we pour in sufficient money and resources, to stem the tide of suffering connected with the refugees. But if we are to stop the refugee problem growing, it will be only when there is a political settlement in East Pakistan which is acceptable to the people of that country, and that is bound up with the recognition of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Therefore, in these avenues of pressure open to the Foreign Secretary, I ask that he makes that clear and also makes clear that this is a widely held view in Britain and that he is not speaking in any way in a mere interventionist rôle but is expressing the deeply held fears and views of a wide area of the British public.
The other matter I wish to air is the question of producing the kind of international organisation which can deal more effectively with disasters, whether man made or not. The speed with which we have moved in this area over the last two or three years has been pathetically slow. After all, this issue has been ventilated over that period. I recognise what the Foreign Secretary has now done, but I hope that pressure will be exerted at the United Nations to see that this aspect of the problem is dealt with much more effectively. It requires all the resources that the West in particular can bring to the problem in order that the same kind of provision can be made for disasters as is made in the Western world for the containment of Communism. If we were to consider the matter as urgently as that, we could do the planning in depth which is necessary to provide both the stockpile and the resources in transport, and so on, which would be necessary to get the supplies and the personnel to disaster areas as quickly as possible.
The speed with which we have moved in this matter is a point of criticism not only of the Government but of all of us in the West over the last few years. Particularly is this so in relation to Pakistan. After all, this has not come upon us only in the last fortnight. The threat has existed for some weeks now, and even months. During the debate in May, it was plain from the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) that he was then forecasting that the exodus of refugees, which at that stage was 2 million, would grow

to 5 million within weeks—that it has done—and that the possibility of starvation was very real for about 75 million people.
We have not yet reached that stage but it is clear that the problem is growing, and in our planning for this kind of disaster we have been woefully slow and inadequate in our approach. I do not say that in any way as party criticism; it is a criticism of the Western world generally.
I hope, therefore, that in his efforts to speed up that provision the Foreign Secretary will indicate to the other parties concerned how deep is the anxiety felt in the House and how far it transcends any party-political divisions.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: There are in the Chamber tonight many familiar faces, for there are many right hon. and hon. Members who are no strangers to the problem of overseas aid, a problem which, as the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyons) has just said, transcends party differences. An hour and a half ago tensions were raised, perhaps, on the question whether we should enter the Common Market, but now when we look to an even bigger problem, the problem of the suffering of millions of people in another part of the world thousands of miles away, we can become united in our determination to do something. The whole House welcomes the spirit and mood of the statement this afternoon from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who spoke so seriously and responsibly on this subject.
It should be remembered also that, although the House is not exactly crowded at this moment, there are many in the country outside who are extremely concerned and wonder whether this nation, no longer so great or so dominant in the world, can exert an influence and even a leadership in the task of helping to defeat the consequences of a disaster of almost unmentionable proportions.
As I say that, I am conscious that I may be guilty of an emotional approach—I think that emotionalism can cloud our judgment and the judgment of the public and the Press—but there is a deep concern and a serious impatience over the immense tragedy which is developing


in Pakistan. I do not think that the Government have been slow to act or ungenerous in the present crisis, but I am more concerned about our whole attitude to the question of aid and the targets at which we should aim.
The Pakistan disaster is, I believe, the result of political action in that country coming so close on the heels of the natural tragedy of the typhoon last year and the floods which followed. Those hon. Members who have recently been there will know exactly how the people felt. The floods created an uncertainty and an unrest, and the actions of the Pakistan Government to curtail or contain that unrest have produced a disturbance in some ways more tragic than revolution or civil war itself, for they have by this very disturbance caused a mass migration of, perhaps, 4 million to 5 million homeless, friendless, starving and diseased people across the frontier into another country.
These people are sliding towards greater disaster. It is no good our lamenting that the problem is too big for us or that it is of their own creation. This is the very sort of problem which we have thought about before and have predicted. It is the sort of problem which the Pearson Commission envisaged when it wrote its great report. We see it happening now in Asia. Next, perhaps, it will happen in South America, and one day, perhaps, in Africa.
Our object as a rich industrial developed nation should be to work to prevent such uncertainties and such tragedies happening again. The whole purpose of overseas aid is not to be a palliative for a disaster when it occurs but, rather, to be preventive. We should think of it as an investment against disasters of this kind. Perhaps this is where we go wrong, both in the House and in the country, in seeing the present tragedy as an occasion for calling out the fire brigade, the fire brigade of people's hearts and pockets, the fire brigade of Government action and the fire brigade of the House of Commons.
Political events have, of course, aggravated the problems of overcrowding, lack of housing, poverty and hunger which obtain already in Pakistan and in India. But it is not enough for the donor countries, as we are called, to be unconcerned

about political actions in the undeveloped countries which receive overseas aid. When a country like Pakistan has suffered an enormous natural disaster such as the typhoon and the floods which followed it last year, it is not surprising that the social breakdown which occurred produced a detonator for the political reaction and the civil war which we have witnessed since then. Having said that, however, I am still unhappy that there should be a question of political sanctions in terms of overseas aid when people are starving and suffering so grievously as a result of both natural disaster and political mistake in Pakistan.
I wish to say a word now about the work of the voluntary agencies, and here I must declare an interest inasmuch as I have an association with Christian Aid. The voluntary agencies have already been working and spending money on a great scale in Pakistan both as a consequence of the typhoon and as a consequence of the civil war. The five agencies to which I refer—the British Red Cross. Christian Aid, Oxfam, the Save the Children Fund and War on Want—under an arrangement reached some years ago have once again come together and formed the United Kingdom Disasters Emergency Committee.
An advertisement from the Committee—albeit a very small advertisement—appeared in The Times this morning asking for funds to help the voluntary efforts being made in this country to meet the problems encountered in the present disaster. The voluntary agencies have come together to make a joint appeal. They are working not against one another but in full co-ordination and cooperation. I agree with the observations of the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) on the subject of co-ordination and co-operation between the voluntary bodies themselves and between the voluntary bodies, the United Nations agencies, the individual Governments concerned on the spot and the donor countries. This is of enormous importance if aid is to be effective and really helpful to the people who are suffering.
The voluntary agencies have already spent between £250,000 and £500,000 of their own resources in tackling the problems arising from the civil war. It is expected that, as a result of their appeal,


they will raise at least another £1 million. It is vital, however, that each of these bodies, as well as the United Nations agencies, should satisfy themselves that they can spend these funds to the maximum effect before asking the public to replenish and supplement their resources.
The International Red Cross, the Save the Children Fund and Christian Aid are already operational in the sense that they do not rely on sending teams abroad but already have operational organisations in the countries concerned. Their work is all the time far more operational than purely fund raising. All these organisations were already hard at work long before the situation became headline news. Christian Aid, for example, has already passed £40,000 to its sister agency in India, the Christian Agency for Social Action, into whose direct care the Indian Government have placed 100,000 of the Pakistani refugees who have come into that country.
There should be no diverting of the money originally allocated by the British public and the Government for the relief and rehabilitation of the East Pakistan typhoon victims. A total of £800,000 from that appeal remains unspent because of this civil war, but the suffering in East Pakistan as a result of those floods is no less since the war than before it. In fact, it is immeasurably greater, and every penny of that money will be needed.
I want to say something now which may shock hon. Members. I hope there will be no question of the Pakistan Government keeping out the voluntary agencies. I add this as a warning in this place where we can voice warnings because there is a feeling at the back of my mind that there could be a move to keep the voluntary agencies out as there was, according to my understanding, in Nigeria during the civil war there. There may be a feeling by some, I am sure not by all, in Pakistan that these voluntary agencies, by their very success and effectiveness in the alleviation of distress, might reduce the effectiveness of political action in that country. I hope that I have not shocked too many of my listeners by saying this.
I would also warn the House about the danger of sweeping moral judgments or any actions which suggest political preferences to Governments sensitive

towards this suffering. It may well be that a proportion of the money coming forward to aid Pakistan, either from voluntary contributions or from Governments, will be needed for as yet undetermined aid programmes among the Pakistani refugees, rather than for the instant and dramatic assistance in the fight against disease.
I have tried to air some of the concern I feel in this matter, which I know is shared by the whole House. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for having spoken so feelingly and extensively on this problem. I hope he will bear in mind some of the warnings I have given.

5.33 p.m.

Mr. John Mendelson: When we on this side of the House pressed yesterday afternoon for a special debate today I believe that we undertook an obligation to make suggestions to the Government about what we want them to do on behalf of the country in addition to what they are already doing. I want to elaborate only one point which I put forward to the right hon. Gentleman for action.
Along with a parliamentary delegation from the two Houses of Parliament, I was in Calcutta for a little time at the end of last year. We saw the way in which the administration was coping with the difficult situation. It was already difficult because of overcrowding. Along with the difficulties there were some successes. It was important to realise that with the many economic and social problems facing India, not only the central administration but also some local administrations were making good progress. We saw an over-crowded city, and it is not difficult to imagine now what it must be like with hundreds of thousands of people coming over the frontier as refugees.
The Foreign Secretary made a fairly outspoken speech yesterday, which the House welcomed and which I note has been welcomed this morning by public opinion, in which he mentioned the link between the political situation and the relief situation. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly pointed to a further potential danger, that of mass starvation. That terrible danger is directly linked to numbers. It is, therefore, of the first order of importance to see that the number of refugees does not grow in


the immediate future, and, if possible, is reduced. The same considerations apply to public health. As we know from the many detailed reports sent back by our correspondents, there is a direct relationship between the ability of doctors, nurses and the health authorities to do effective work in preventing the spread of the disease and the number of refugees assembled in a given area.
There is no way of discussing the relief and the health situations other than by linking them directly to the political situation. While it may be difficult at this stage for the Government to introduce proposals which might be interpreted as sanctions, and while I can understand the Government being reluctant to entertain anything which might be so interpreted—I would understand it if we were in offce and Ministers of my party felt the same reluctance—it is nevertheless our duty to make such suggestions to the Government as will allow refugees to return to East Pakistan and also allow those who are there to feel confident about staying but as will not at the same time be interpreted as being sanctions.
The idea I want to put forward is that which I mentioned briefly at Question Time yesterday. The Government should now have consultations with the other powers in the United Nations and propose the setting up of a United Nations Commission which should without delay proceed to East Pakistan, with the agreement of the Government of Pakistan. The Foreign Secretary did not reject the suggestion yesterday but did point out that Pakistan was a sovereign country and that we could not say what should happen there.
My suggestion is not for an individual initiative by Her Majesty's Government but that the Government should get together with other United Nations Powers. It might be possible to come to such an agreement before a formal meeting of the Security Council is called, and to do this through the administrative function of the Secretary-General. The situation may soon arise when it will be absolutely essential to call for a Security Council meeting.
I support the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) on two occasions now, that

there should be such a meeting, but I can understand the reluctance of the Government, because a formal meeting of the Security Council might lead to a confrontation of arguments which would not be helpful to any purpose that I have in mind. It may be that the Government will tell me that it is not possible under United Nations rules to agree to send a commission without the formal approval of the Security Council. I am not sure. Studying the rules, I believe it might be possible to do it administratively through the Secretary-General if there is broad agreement among members which have been consulted. I am reinforced my my right hon. Friend in believing that that is possible. If that is so, I would suggest that the Government should have immediate consultations with other Powers and should also diplomatically get into contact, as they already are, with the Government of Pakistan. Such a United Nations commission would, of course, be composed of eminent international personalities to be sent forthwith to East Pakistan.
I have two reasons for making this suggestion. However much one wants to be careful in choosing one's words in the face of this great tragedy, it is quite clear now, as the Foreign Secretary said yesterday afternoon, that people continue to come over the frontier from East Pakistan because they are frightened for their lives. There can be no doubt about that. That is common ground in the House among those who have had a close look at the problem. That being so, what we need are international political means to reassure those people. There have been parallel situations in the past, as I recall after the First World War. I think that the Government of Pakistan would be well advised to accept such a United Nations Commission once it has been proposed.
Without such reassurance in East Pakistan itself. I do not think it will be possible to persuade many of the refugees to return. That, of course, is a reason for my suggestion. If there were to be such reassurance in East Pakistan, and if we were to succeed in persuading people to stay there, and if we were to build up a relief organisation to supply food, and so on, so that life there might become bearable again, physically and politically secure in East Pakistan, then the strain


would not continue, and that would be a most powerful argument to put to persuade people to stay and the refugees to return. Indeed, the argument would not have to be put—it would speak for itself—to the refugees to return home if they received assurances, perhaps from members of their families, that under such a United Nations Commission the situation was being stabilised and that they were no more in danger of their lives.
That is the one and only point I wish to put to the Government today, and I hope they will consider it and implement it.

5.42 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers: Yesterday afternoon at this time I was putting forward a written declaration to a joint meeting of the European Parliamentarians and the members of the Assembly of the Council of Europe, and as it is very important perhaps the House would let me read what was suggested. I am glad to say that it was signed by 18 people from different countries of Europe. They agreed that
In view of the fact that requests for emergency food aid for Pakistan and India cannot be met by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the members of the Council of Europe Consultative Assembly request the Committee of Ministers to convene a meeting, immediately, to review the situation, to examine what aid can be given by member countries and to arrange for full co-operation in order that aid can be provided forthwith.
Like the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), I went to India just before Christmas and had an opportunity of seeing Calcutta—fortunately not under such distressing conditions. My family has been connected with India for about a hundred years and I have had some relatives who have died from cholera—in fact they are buried in Madras State—so I feel deeply about this matter and the very unhappy position there at the present time.
It is all important that we should see that food is given, because when people are suffering from malnutrition, the disease takes worse effect. I have myself given cholera injections and I know that injections will not be so successful unless the patients have food. With the monsoon coming there is also the risk of

pneumonia, which is another disease to fight against.
Europe has a surplus of food and and could contribute food, and I would think that in this case food is rather more essential than cash.
I myself have worked in similar emergency situations although on a smaller scale, in Malaysia and Indonesia, and one thing we have to think seriously about is what kind of shelter can be given to these people, especially during the monsoon.
I should like to see as many tents sent as possible. The hon. Member for Penis-tone will remember that in Hayana we saw how effective army tents can be in providing temporary accommodation. They were well constructed and the Indian Army has full knowledge of how to plan this type of accommodation. There can also be bamboo shelters. I remember how we built a temporary hospital of bamboo—without a single nail—and it was built very quickly. If necessary, one can use cow dung for the floor; it is quite sanitary. This construction makes an excellent shelter. I myself received in this type of accommodation in Indonesia, several hundred refugees a day who came in for treatment and food.
A great many doctors in India come to this country. When we were in India we found that one of the reasons they come here was that their payment in India is not adequate. They were rather reluctant to work in the villages because of this problem. I should like to see these doctors paid adequate salaries and serving in refugee areas. Moreover, I should like to see that they are well insured, because if they fall ill, and they have families, their families will suffer. One reason why they may be reluctant to go to an area where they would be vulnerable to disease is that they have to think of their families. I would also suggest that we make a special appeal to the many Pakistanis and Indians in this country, who are very generous, as we have found in the past, who would probably be very happy to contribute to a fund. It would be very nice, too, if the people in their respective countries could feel that their brethren overseas were taking an interest in their welfare.
I was distressed to see that incident about the cricket bat. Surely there was a marvellous way of promoting good


community relations, and I hope that the High Commissioner of Pakistan may have second thoughts about this matter.
The hon. Member for Penistone mentioned the refugees not wanting to go back home. It may be, perhaps, that Hindus will be very reluctant, indeed frightened, to go back in the future, and may wish to become citizens of India. In this connection I would point out that one country which has been dealing successfully with settling and rehabilitating refugees is Hong Kong, and I would suggest requesting advice from Hong Kong on how Hong Kong would tackle this problem. I believe that Hong Kong has 4 million refugees altogether. I am not, of course, suggesting that the conditions there are the same as they are in East Pakistan and the Indian border, or that the people are of the same type, but in Hong Kong they know how to put up buildings quickly to accommodate people, and how to rehabilitate them—by finding them work, which is what is needed by many of the Pakistani refugees, and in giving the refugees work without taking away work from people already living there. One of the things causing difficulties in West Bengal is the fear which people have of work being taken away from them. I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies to the debate he will consider the question of asking advice from Hong Kong, the most experienced country in dealing with a refugee problem, with which it has coped very successfully indeed.
We have not heard anything today about the International Red Cross. I should like India and Pakistan to be asked whether they will allow the International Red Cross in to make an objective report, as this is an absolutely neutral body which is always extremely helpful. I found them very helpful when I was working in Indonesia when we had a big refugee problem. I believe that the International Red Cross has the respect of both countries and could be relied upon to give an objective report.
We are in a slight difficulty because, under the Statute of Westminster, we cannot interfere with the domestic concerns of other Commonwealth countries, but I hop that, if India and Pakistan find that it is not just Britain which wants to help them, but other countries as well, including some of the 18 who signed my declara-

tion yesterday in Strasbourg, they will realise that they need not be alone in tackling their problem. I hope that the Strasbourg declaration may open the way for many more relief organisations, which can help Pakistan and India to put these urgent problems right in the quickest time possible.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. John Storehouse: Like the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), I am connected with the voluntary organisations which have been doing their best to assist in this disaster in the last two months. I declare an association with War on Want. I endorse much of what he said about the work of these charities and the way in which they have co-operated, not just in the last few days but from the beginning when there was the first sign that the situation would deteriorate into disaster.
Those commentators in the Press who have complained about the lack of response have only themselves to blame because the media themselves failed until recent days to highlight the situation, which was being predicted by all the experts a long time ago. In particular, the consortium to which the hon. Gentleman referred has employed Mr. Ian Mac-Donald as the organiser of a team to assist in averting a major famine disaster in East Pakistan following the cyclone of last year. In his reports, some of which have been made public, Mr. MacDonald has given due warning of the danger of mass famine in East Bengal. It is only recently that the media have caught up with this situation. I am glad they have now done so. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly known, not only in this country but in others, that there is awful danger of mass famine following the recent disturbances and the cyclone of last year.
I want to take the issue back, from what we are now reading in the Press about the four million to five million refugees who have escaped, to the causes of this awful state of affairs. The causes are clear to anyone who has been reading the detailed reports that have appeared in the Press and that have been available from the experienced observers who have gone out to that part of the world in recent weeks.
After the Awami League won its overwhelming victory to which my hon.


Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) referred, there was no inclination on the part of the military leaders in West Pakistan and their political supporters to accept this democratic will. There was prolonged discussion and prevarication and the delay in the calling of the Assembly. During this period, the military leaders were building up their army forces in Dacca, Chittagong and the other main centres so that it would be possible for them at an appointed time to act militarily to flout the democratic will that had been so openly expressed last November.

Mr. Wilkinson: I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that, in the period after the prorogation of the Assembly, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was singularly unwilling to go to West Pakistan to consult the political leaders in that part of the country to find a joint framework, within the unity of the Pakistan State, for establishing democratic institutions. That was part of the tragedy.

Mr. Stonehouse: As I understand it, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was not a secessionist at that stage but was anxious to work out a solution consistent with the unity of Pakistan but allowing greater autonomy for East Pakistan on the lines of the six points on which the Awami League fought the election. It does not become us here to complain when democratically-elected leaders do their best to honour the election pledges that they made and on which they achieved an overwhelming mandate, as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did.
The Pakistan army struck on 25th March. It struck in various centres and at the university. Its deliberate intention was to wipe out all known leaders of the Awami League, all intellectuals, anyone who could possibly produce an opposition to military rule from West Pakistan. What is so disturbing is that that repression did not last just a day or so as one sharp blow; it has continued ever since.
Hon. Members may have read in The Guardian of 27th May the remarkable communications from the Rev. John Hastings and the Rev. John Clapham, two missionaries associated with Church relief work in Calcutta. They wrote:
We are not reporters with little time to spare looking for the best stories. We have each lived in West Bengal for most of 20 years

and we have talked at random with hundreds of refugees in the course of our relief work among them. The total picture of what has been happening in East Bengal is clear to us without any shadow of doubt.
There are scores of survivors of firing-squad line-ups. Hundreds of witnesses to the machine-gunning of political leaders, professors, doctors, teachers and students.
Villages have been surrounded, at any time of day or night, and the frightened villagers have fled where they could, or been slaughtered where they have been found, or enticed out to the fields and mown down in heaps. Women have been raped, girls carried off to barracks, unarmed peasants battered or bayoneted by the thousands.
The pattern, after seven weeks, is still the same. Even the least credible stories, of babies thrown up to be caught on bayonets, of women stripped and bayoneted vertically, or of children sliced up like meat, are credible not only because they are told by so many people, but because they are told by people without sufficient sophistication to make up such stories for political motives.
I could go on to quote more. These are the accounts of honest, disinterested observers.
I have here also affidavits which came into my possession only a day or so ago, sworn in the courts of Tripura, in India. I want to quote from one or two of them. The first is an affidavit made on 27th May in the court room at Abroom, in Tripura, South. It is numbered 028808. This properly witnessed legal document says:
I, Mahfuzul Bari, a contractor by occupation and inhabitant of Hatia Island in the District of Noakhali, by faith Muslim, do hereby solemnly affirm and say as follows:—
1. That on 6th May, 1971, about 500 army men came to our island and started indiscriminate killing. They burnt our houses and shops. They used heavy machine guns, flame throwers and mortar shells. They raped our young women and took away thirteen young girls, raped them and then by inserting the rifle end inside the private parts pulled the triggers and thereby killed all thirteen girls.
That I along with other villagers of the surrounding area escaped numbering about 5,000 in one day. We walked one by one 76 miles and then crossed over to the border and took refuge in the State of Tripura in India",
and so on.
Another affidavit that I quote from is numbered 031251 and was sworn in the same court on 27th May. It says:
I, Mong Raja Momphrusain, the Mong Chief, Head of the Mong tribe, the original and permanent inhabitants of Ramgarh Sub-Division in the District of Hill Chittagong, in Bangla Desh, by faith Buddhist, do hereby solemnly affirm and say as follows.


He then refers to the cyclone of November, and goes on to say this:
3. That since 26th March, 1971 while the memories of the cyclone was still fresh a man-made devastation started by the brutal of Yahya Khan by wanton and indiscriminate killings of unarmed civilian population, burning houses, looting all belongings of the civilian population, shelling and destroying the temples as well as the mosques and raping and kidnapping our women and disgracing them and civilisation in the manner the world never witnessed or experienced.
4. That in order to escape from such atrocious and uncivilised state of affairs and in order to save ray people from death and disgrace I along with my tribesmen who could survive crossed the border in order to find shelter in India. There are about 400,000 refugees from the Sub-Division of Ramgarh alone who have already crossed over the border to the Indian State.
These declarations and the many other hundreds of thousands of witnesses who have been able to articulate their experiences are witness and evidence to the most awful genocide—that is not too strong a word to use—since Hitler started the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
There is surely a point at which the world community must say that this horror and barbarism has passed the stage of no concern to the world at large, has passed the stage of a mere internal affair about which we cannot concern ourselves directly, and becomes a matter which the world community must take note of and must attempt to do something about.
I am concerned not only about the threat to international peace, though I think that that in itself is sufficient reason for following the advice of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) in calling for the Security Council to meet to discuss this question. There is another reason why the Security Council should be called together—that is to consider the obligations of the United Nations to ensure that the Convention on Genocide is honoured by Pakistan and the rulers who are directly responsible for the barbarism that is now going on. Pakistan is itself a signatory to the Convention on Genocide, and there is, therefore, every reason why Pakistani leaders should be brought to accept that that Convention should apply.
The difficulties of the United Nations in enforcing the Convention on a State which is not willing to allow outside interference in its affairs are considerable.

But the world has recognised certain standards of behaviour, and if the United Nations means anything at all, and if those affirmations of decency and justice to which we have paid lip service over the years since the war, since the evolution of the concept of the United Nations and all that it stands for, mean anything at all, the United Nations must act to bring real pressure to bear on the Pakistani authorities to allow it to take some direct hand in this situation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) proposed that the Security Council should ask the Government of Pakistan to allow a commission to move into East Pakistan to do something to return that country to administration and order. If my hon. Friend's suggestion is not accepted by the Government of Pakistan within the next week or so, I believe that it is incumbent upon the United Nations to use pressures of every possible sort, including direct intervention, to stop this genocide from continuing.
I pay credit to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for behaving in a thoroughly humane and sympathetic way ever since this disaster started developing. I hope that after his discussions next week with the Indian Foreign Secretary he will not take the line that he took yesterday; namely, that this is merely a problem for Pakistan and India. I hope that the Secretary of State will accept that as the country mainly responsible for the setting up of India and Pakistan over 20 years ago and as one of the signatories to the United Nations Charter, it is now for this country to take an initiative in the Security Council so that this matter can be dealt with effectively.
If we were to concentrate merely on the problem of the refugees, we could well be diverted from the horrors that are continuing in East Bengal. I accept that it is not for us to dictate what the eventual political solution will be, although I have no doubt that the decision of the overwhelming number of people in East Bengal as shown by the election last November is that they want to have an independent Bangla Desh and to run their affairs through their own elected leaders led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and that they will now have no truck at all with a united Pakistan led


by the military clique in West Pakistan who have been guilty of so much barbarism.
All that I am suggesting is that the United Nations should give those people an opportunity of self-determination which is the undeniable right of people in all parts of the world. We have an opportunity of ensuring that they enjoy that right in East Bengal.
Further—I say this in all seriousness and with, I hope, as little emotionalism as possible—I hope that it will not go unnoticed that in the last week or so a remarkable debate has been proceeding in the United States about the alleged guilt for war crimes in Vietnam of the political leaders of the United States. Some hon. Members may have seen a programme on B.B.C. television last Sunday night which examined this problem and reminded us that at the end of the last war there were interesting precedents for establishing war guilt for political and military leaders who were not directly involved themselves in war crimes. There was the famous trial of a Japanese general for atrocities in the Philippines. There was the Nuremburg trial itself.
These are precedents which lead us to believe that in time, if jurisdiction can be established, there will be an opportunity for a commission of jurists to examine whether there is guilt in the hands and minds of the leaders of West Pakistan who have been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said from the Front Bench yesterday, the greatest man-made disaster since the last Great War.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. John Wilkinson: The speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) and Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) were in marked contrast to that of the right hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse). My hon. Friends spoke with great humanity and deep understanding of the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport has great wisdom in these matters and long professional experience of the Far East which the House would do well to heed.

The right hon. Member for Wednesbury merely exacerbated the tensions and difficulties of restoring order and good community relations in East Pakistan. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary rightly emphasised, this is a precondition for effective rehabilitation and relief in that country. I hope that not just the House but the nation will note the extremely serious statement of the right hon. Member for Wednesbury, which cannot be lightly shrugged aside, about pressures of every conceivable sort, including direct intervention, being used against a country with which we are friendly.
I am glad that my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury and Devon-port emphasised the great importance of building up the economy of East Pakistan in the longer term. If the refugees from East Pakistan, who are now in the appallingly and heartrendingly overcrowded camps in West Bengal, are to return eastwards to Pakistan, which is the best solution and which the President of Pakistan has encouraged by his amnesty and his repeated statements in recent weeks that they would be welcomed back, then the sort of blood-curdling allegations of the right hon. Member for Wednesbury are not best suited to bring about the reconciliation which we so much desire. I condemn brutality, violence and extremism of any kind. I share the sentiments so well expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, but it does not help to reiterate the over-emotional and deeply disturbing tales which have emanated from the torn and stricken regions of East Pakistan.
We are well aware of what has gone on in that part of the world, but when the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that we were fully appraised of the situation and that the Press and television authorities had done a good job, I do not believe she did the House justice. It has been manifestly clear that in this confused situation most of the reports have inevitably come from the other side of the frontier. Strict censorship has been imposed. There has not been free movement of people within East Pakistan. To my knowledge only six accredited journalists were allowed


in to East Pakistan. In these circumstances, it is not reasonable for the right hon. Lady to claim that we know exactly what has been going on.
When we hear reports of extremely violent action by the Army, we must remember that brutalities of other kinds have occurred. There has been communal violence of a deep-seated and fundamentally dangerous kind for the long-term future of stability in that part of the sub-continent, let alone within the context of a united Pakistan. There has been a lot of butchery of Muslim Biharis who could not even easily return to the State of their origin because, being Muslim, they feared for their future within India. Elements within East Pakistan have supported the Government. I have met them, because my constituency probably has more Pakistanis in it than any other constituency in the United Kingdom. I therefore hope that hon. Members opposite, and particularly right hon. Members and right hon. Ladies opposite, will get their facts absolutely right before they adduce uncorroborated evidence before the House.

Mr. Julius Silverman: Would the hon. Gentleman explain why refugees are still pouring into India from East Bengal at the rate of about 130,000 a day?

Mr. Wilkinson: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has clearly explained that. He said that the people were fearful of their future. Many of them were Hindus. This exemplifies the dangers of communal disturbance, which is at the heart of the trouble in that part of the sub-continent. This is a very good reason why we should emphasise the long-term task of reconciliation.
The right hon. Member for Wednesbury said that we should not interfere in the political framework of Pakistan. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said that a proper stable political framework was essential to create confidence and good community relations and, above all, stability for the good and effective movement of supplies and the organisation of relief work. I think that that is accepted by both sides. The right hon. Member for Wednesbury was not being helpful by merely emphasising what

he regarded as unnecessary and, as is probably true, fairly brutal methods used by the Army in the political context in which we are discussing this matter. The political context is not nearly as clear as the right hon. Gentleman would lead us to suppose.
The free elections took place within the concept of a united Pakistan. This was understood by both parties in the long election campaign. The Assembly was prorogued at the beginning of March in preparation for a constitutional assembly in which the freely elected representatives would work out a long-term democratic constitution for Pakistan which the Pakistan Government welcomed and which the President overtly said he welcomed. We should note this.
Instead, in the three weeks or so up to the crucial events of 25th and 26th March, there was a move towards extremism in the Awami League. The responsible elements in the Awami League lost control and a number of events occurred which make the long-term rehabilitation of East Pakistan difficult. State revenues were impounded in private banks. There was fairly widespread lawlessness and communal rioting. More and more extreme programmes were put forward which went far beyond the original six points and the original concept of autonomy to something much akin to secession.
Pakistan, as a united country, could not condone this. We must recognise that the leadership of the Awami League moved for a presidential proclamation which would instal Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as Prime Minister without going through the long-term processes for establishing a democratic parliamentary system, and in that situation the right hon. Gentleman was being simplistic. He was misleading the House and the country and doing that part of the sub-continent a great disservice.
It was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport that we in this country, including those in the Indian and Pakistani community, should show directly by financial contribution the degree of our compassion. The City of Bradford, under a Conservative mayor, after the East Pakistan cyclone disaster instituted a public fund for relief which collected more than £18,000 and was


subscribed to by all sections of the community. I suggest this example should be followed now.
I ask the Minister to say how far the process of rehabilitation in the coastal littoral, the cyclone area, has gone. Fears were expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury on this issue. The two charity representatives now in East Pakistan are worried about this, particularly in the aftermath of the civil disturbances. About £800,000 of the £1·3 million available is yet to be allocated and distributed. How far have the charities been able to resume their work, and how far has order been restored to enable rehabilitation to continue?
On the distribution of aid and the ministrations of the United Nations, we should have learnt from the recent cyclone disaster how vital it is to establish the correct infrastructure, to restore communications and to enable supplies to be distributed. At the end of last year there was a most unfortunate piling up of supplies and relief materials, foodstuffs and so on, in the ports and airfields in East Pakistan. According to reports a similar piling up is beginning to occur in Calcutta of relief supplies for the refugees from Pakistan. I urge my hon. Friend to make sure that our Government provide the maximum transportation and engineering facilities in this crucial phase. When this question was first mooted the President of Pakistan said that there was an adequate supply of foodstuffs in the short term in East Pakistan, but he was far from complacent about the long-term prospect, and this is what the United Nations must face.
It is good to know that Prince Sadrud-din, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, talked this Sunday and Monday with the Economic Adviser and with the President in Islamabad about the restoration of stability in East Pakistan so that the refugees may be encouraged to return. This is the long-term solution. When people outside Pakistan talk of political solutions they do the House a disservice. Almost any imposed political solution has its drawbacks. If East Pakistan were incorporated in India there would be fearful communal disturbance—in 1905 Curzon divided Bengal. An independent Bangla Desh people's republic would not suit

the stability either of India or any other part of South-East Asia. No developing country—not even Algeria—has recognised the concept of an independent East Pakistan of Bangla Desh. For long-term future stability we must work within the concept of a united Pakistan, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has so rightly emphasised, and we must not impose preconditions upon aid. To impose political preconditions would subject millions of people in East Pakistan, which has a density of 1,400 persons per square mile, to further long-term suffering and privation and accentuate the flow of refugees which we want to stop.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Michael Barnes: It is impossible to see the plight of the refugees in India first hand, as I had the opportunity to do last week and the week before, without feeling cynical about the way in which international bureaucracy goes into action when faced with such a tragedy.
In New Delhi on 21st May the Indian Government had a clear picture of the situation. There were then 3·3 million refugees from East Pakistan in India, and they were coming over at the rate of 100,000 a day. The vast majority were in West Bengal, about 600,000 were in Tripura about 300,000 in Assam and Meghalaya and a few hundred thousand in Bihar. The priorities were clear: first, shelter; second, medicines; third, transport; and, fourth, food. Many of those things were available already in India.
The main requirement, therefore, was money, and the Indian Government estimated that, over a six-month period, to cope with the refugee problem on the basis of between 3 million and 4 million refugees would cost about £70 million. There are now over 5 million refugees, so the cost is much higher. Even though the main need was money, it was clear then that there was a limited requirement for shipments from the outside world, especially of baby foods for the large number of children in the refugee camps who were suffering from protein deficiency. Medicines were needed from outside, especially cholera vaccine. Transport was also needed, especially for the more isolated States like Tripura, the capital of the State, Agartala, being 140 miles from the railhead. That was


the position three weeks ago when U Thant made his appeal. Only now are specific supplies arriving in any quantity, and there still appears to be a considerable lack of co-ordination.
The Foreign Secretary said yesterday:
With the increasing flood of refugees and the declaration by the Indian Government of a cholera epidemic on 4th June certain priorities can now be identified—sheller, medical supplies, transport and food."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th June, 1971; Vol. 153, c. 863.]
But those priorities have not just been identified during the last few days. They were spelt out to Mr. Donald Chesworth, the Chairman of War on Want, and to me in New Delhi by officials of the Department of Rehabilitation on 21st May. Part of the trouble in getting the international operation off the ground was that U Thant's appeal three weeks ago was far too vague and unspecific. It left much too much room for doubt among the countries which could have provided help as to exactly what was required of them.
Another difficulty is that the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees seemed unable to set up headquarters in India which could quickly transmit requests for specific shipments to those countries which were able to provide them quickly. When I arrived with Mr. Chesworth in Calcutta on 22nd May, people who were working in the refugee camps were saying, "There will be an outbreak of cholera, and when the monsoons come it will go through the camps just like that." There were then two weeks in which cholera vaccine and saline fluid could have been shipped in bulk. The United Nations should be able to do better than it has done in this instance in co-ordinating international relief. For that reason I welcome the steps which the British Government are taking to try to get a disaster coordinator set up, but I heartily endorse the improvements to those proposals which my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) outlined in her speech as being necessary.
Even though the United Nations may have been slow in getting the operation off the ground, surely it was still open to other Governments to take the initiative and contact the Indian Government direct to try to stockpile vital supplies of food and medicines that were needed. I find it hard to understand why Ministers were

not able to cut through the protocol on this.
The support that the Government have given to the voluntary organisations has been excellent. Although opinions may differ whether the British Government should have pledged more money to the United Nations appeal, certainly they responded speedily, and almost the very next day pledged £1 million. What seems to have been lacking was any direct contact between the British Government and the Indian Government. I should have thought that it would also have been possible to make direct offers of help to ship supplies from Britain as Government aid, as opposed to the help from voluntary organisations which is now going through. However, things are moving now.

Mr. Edward Gardner: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with intense interest. As someone who, like myself, has a great regard for India and that part of the world, does he know whether any request was made to this country by the Indian Government for assistance?

Mr. Barnes: Part of the problem is that, extraordinary as it may seem in this age of mass communication, communication between nations is so difficult. It may well be that specific requests were not spelt out as quickly and clearly by India as they might have been, but that is no reason for us to sit on our backsides when faced with a tragedy of such (proportions. Because the bureaucrats seem to get so bogged down, it is up to politicians, who are supposed to be men of action, to try to cut through some of the delays that occur in such situations.
But things are moving on relief now, although the size of the problem is increasing greatly. According to the news today, Colonel Luthra, who is in charge of the relief operation for refugees in India, estimates that there are now 5·3 million refugees in India, and that they are coming in at the rate of 130,000 a day. So the costs will go far higher over the six-month period than the £70 million already estimated by the Indian Government. I hope, therefore, that U Thant will make another appeal and get a much better response from the rest of the world.
But the main question that we must have in our minds today goes beyond


the question of immediate relief. It is concerned with a solution. It is no exaggeration to say that if there is no solution to the present situation, and if it goes on for month after month, there will be a threat to peace in that part of the world. The Indian Government are able to think of the problem only in the short term at present; they can afford only to think of the next six months. Although there is a great deal of sympathy for the refugees among the local Indian population and a strong feeling that they are all Bengalis—it is this that is producing the sympathy—the tensions are there, and problems are being created by the refugees' presence. Some have found work, but this tends to bring down the level of wages, and the demands to feed and house the refugees have pushed up prices. If the situation continues for months there could be a very serious position within that part of India.
On the Pakistan side, the Pakistan army is harassed around the frontiers of East Pakistan by the Bangla Desh freedom fighters, especially on the Western frontier with Assam and Tripura. The freedom fighters claim that they are inflicting many casualties on the Pakistan army. There is provocation for Pakistan there.
If the refugee problem remains unsolved after six months, and if the fighting between the freedom fighters and the Pakistan army continues, there could easily be touched off a conflict between India and Pakistan which could lead to some involvement by Russia and China as well. If that happens—God forbid!—there will doubtless be the usual sterile argument about who started it, but the truth would be that it became inevitable because no solution had been found to the present situation.
The best hope for peace is that conditions can be created in which the refugees, or at least a substantial number of them, will go home. But they will do that only if there is a genuinely democratic settlement. Having spoken to many of them, I find it very hard to see how this can be anything except one which guarantees a high degree of autonomy for East Bengal, if not a separate existence.
The Foreign Secretary spoke about the reception camps set up by Pakistan to receive back the refugees, and of an

amnesty. It is naive to expect the refugees to go back at present. What is the amnesty for them? What have they done?
The Foreign Secretary also spoke about the wounds of civil war. But the civil war proper, such as it was, lasted only a matter of days. The wounds that the refugees bear are not wounds from civil war but wounds from a deliberately unleashed wave of atrocity such as was described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse).

Mr. Ernie Money: would the hon. Gentleman consider that anything that is said at this stage that might exacerbate the situation and make it more difficult for the people concerned to live in peace, as they must, could lead to nothing but the most unwarranted future for the sub-continent?

Mr. Barnes: I certainly accept the hon. Gentleman's point that we must be careful what we say. Even so, that must not, and cannot, close our eyes to what has happened.
When we talk about solutions, the danger we must consider is that there will be a transfer of power to a civil administration which is probably not representative at all and which must be underpinned by the presence of the Pakistan army. That probably will happen before very long anyway. Then the rest of the world may well say, "All right. There has been a settlement. There has been a settlement. There is a civil administration there. It was a terrible thing while it happened, but now we can resume normal relations and resume aid." If the rest of the world says that, it will be extremely shortsighted. Such a settlement will not settle anything. If the civil administration is not representative and there is not genuine democracy, the refugees will not go back and the fight between the freedom fighters and the Pakistan army will go on and there will still exist the seeds of an international conflict. It is not just a question of its being morally right for the rest of the world to press upon President Yahya Khan that there should be a genuine democratic settlement, but only such a settlement can guarantee lasting peace.
I wish to put one or two questions to the Minister for Overseas Development who is to reply to this debate. How


hard are Her Majesty's Government pressing the Government of Pakistan on a political settlement? There is some confusion in the British attitude about aid and economic assistance. There seem to be three separate things that we should distinguish. First of all, there are the existing development aid commitments and there is a wide measure of agreement that such aid should not be cut off, which is a view I share. Secondly, there is the question of new aid commitments and the attitude that will be taken by the consortium when it discusses this matter in a few weeks time. The third aspect, which is perhaps the most important of all, is what will be the attitude of countries like Britain and America when they are asked by the Government of Pakistan to come to the rescue of the Pakistan economy. This is something that is separate from the normal development aid.
The Minister when speaking in our last debate on this subject said—this was said again today by the Foreign Secretary—that there would be no new aid without a political settlement. However, the Minister also said in a broadcast over the weekend that there is no question of using aid as a lever. How does he reconcile these two things? Must not the statement that there should be a political settlement before giving aid provide a level if it is to amount to any kind of pledge? The Government would do well to clarify their position. There is a lot of confusion in India about this matter; Britain's position is being misrepresented in some parts of the Indian press. It is no argument to say that if aid is used as a lever it would amount to interference in a country's internal affairs. Pakistan has put itself out of court by the tragic and awful miscalculation made by the Pakistan Government in the military tactics they employed in East Pakistan. Therefore the donor countries have a right to be satisfied about the conditions in which aid is to be resumed.
I am seeking assurances from the Minister on those matters. Does the statement made by the Minister in the previous debate a few weeks ago extend to the question of coming to the rescue of the Pakistan economy, and would we refuse to do so if the right political settlement did not exist? When the Minister talks of a political settlement,

presumably he does not mean a mere transfer of power to any civil administration which may be unrepresentative and underpinned by the army. I hope the Minister will give an assurance that he does not mean just a transfer of power to any old civil administration with the army holding it up in the background. I hope that he will be able to say that he means a genuine democratic settlement which will command the trust and support of the people in East Bengal and will persuade a substantial proportion of the refugees to return home.

6.45 p.m.

Sir Frederic Bennett: I apologise to the House that I was not present during the middle part of this debate. This was due to the fact that, precisely because of my interest in this subject, I shall a little later this evening be using another medium in which to air this matter and I have been engaged in preparing carefully my remarks on that front about the delicate Pakistan question, otherwise I would have been present throughout the whole of this debate.
I welcomed the short intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money). Although we in this country no longer have power decisively to influence the course of events overseas in a positive sense, we must realise that we have a great capacity, if we are not careful, to do a lot of damage overseas in a negative sense. Since we have ceased to be a great imperial power, we sometimes think that we are doing a service to humanity by making the most laudable statements condemning certain people, praising other people, demanding settlements, and doing so with a feeling of salving our own consciences, whereas in reality we are doing precisely the opposite. The only effect such remarks often have is to get the matter off our chests, but the damage lives on afterwards. I could instance a number of occasions when this has happened in the past.
I was not present during the speech of the right hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse), and I apologise if I misquote him since I have only received a second-hand report of what he said. I understand that, because of his deep feelings on this matter, he went so far as to say that the United Nations should go to the extent of using—I hope


that I am not misquoting him—all appropriate measures to enforce a political settlement in Pakistan. I do not know what he meant by "appropriate measures". He has had considerable experience in Commonwealth matters and I cannot believe that he meant that the United Nations should in some way use some form of forceful intervention. If such a thing were possible—and it would not be possible because the veto would undoubtedly be imposed against any such action—we should recognise that loss of life and difficulties in the area would be multiplied tenfold.

Mr. Stonehouse: The Pakistan authorities have deserted all civilised behaviour. They are now guilty of genocide, which has been condemned by the United Nations Genocide Convention—a convention which Pakistan signed over 20 years ago. If such declarations mean anything, there is a point at which the United Nations—the world community—must intervene. If we look back to the situation that existed over 30 years ago, surely there was a stage when the world would have intervened if Hitler's atrocities against the Jews had become more widely known even before the last great war broke out. There is a point at which the world must intervene, and I believe it is now being reached in the situation in East Bengal.

Sir F. Bennett: Then I do not think I have misinterpreted what the right hon. Gentleman said. He has confirmed that there should be intervention by the world community, and he must realise that Pakistan would not brook any form of outside interference in what she regards as her own internal affairs. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that the use of force would improve the situation, then I believe that on reflection he will feel that he was unwise to suggest that this would bring about a settlement. Even though it represents much of the world community, we must remember that the power of the United Nations is limited.

Mr. Dan Jones: What is the alternative?

Sir F. Bennett: I am making a point in reply to the right hon. Member for Wednesbury.

If it were to be suggested that the Security Council would be in a position to undertake any such mission, the very first thing to happen in present circumstances would be that the Soviet Union would veto the proposal anyway, even if no other country did so. Therefore, the proposal is impracticable as well as wrong. It does not help matters to make declarations which are both harmful and, incidentally, wholly ineffectual, and the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the United Nations as composed today would not intervene forcefully in the Indian sub-continent, however passionately he might feel about it.
We confuse ourselves to talk about using aid as a lever to bring about a political settlement—and I maintain that view even if it was said by someone on my side of the House—while saying at the same time that we should do all we can to help the people living in East Pakistan. I beg hon. Members to realise that, whether they like it or not, the only effective Government in Pakistan West and East at the moment is the Government of Pakistan. Whether they like it or not, Bangla Desh is not in command of the ports of Chittagong and Dacca or the airports of East Pakistan. Hon. Members make themselves almost absurd when they say that we should increase the aid which we give to East Pakistan but not use the Pakistan Government as a means of giving that aid and that we should cut aid to Pakistan generally. If aid to Pakistan is cut, the available cake for development throughout the entire country will be diminished by that amount, and East Pakistan in its turn will get less aid.
I have been waiting for some weeks since the last debate to hear anybody suggest in practical, not theoretical, terms how, on the one hand, aid can be cut to the Pakistan present de facto Government and. on the other hand, increased to East Pakistan. Whether we like it or not, at the moment the Pakistan Government and the Pakistani armed forces are the only institutions available for development aid, or any other kind of aid, which could flow to East Pakistan. Nobody does any good service by suggesting that there is any other institution at the moment by which any form of aid or support could be funnelled to East Pakistan on any scale, apart from a little


running across the frontier. If we say that we will not deal with the existing Government of Pakistan, that we will not give aid, that we will use aid as a lever, or the lack of aid to punish, the people in West Pakistan will suffer, but so will the people in East Pakistan. That is a fact which cannot be denied.
Yesterday, I raised one other matter with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I said that, having only just got back from abroad, I had not had much chance to study the reports available to me about the composition of the refugees. I have since had 24 hours, and I repeat the proposition which I put to my right hon. Friend yesterday; namely, that the refugee problem today is not what it was a month ago.
The refugee problem a month ago, when the civil war was at its height, was that the Bengalis of all religions were trying to get away from the armed forces because of genuine fear and apprehension, and no one denies that. As I understand it—I have had fairly categorical assurances about this—that general flow of refugees has almost entirely ended, and today the refugees constitute a different sort of problem, no less tragic, but the all-too-familiar problem of Hindus from East Pakistan going to India. It is no less tragic, no less sad, no less horrible, but it is different from frightened people fleeing before armed forces, as was the case when the civil war broke out.
I happen to think that this situation is even more dangerous and difficult for the future economic state of these refugees, because one has to look not at the last few weeks but, unfortunately, as far back as 1947–48. When the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition spoke yesterday, I thought rather unfairly, about the British Government's lack of initiative in dealing with what he called the worst tragedy in human terms since the last war, he forgot about 1947–48 when many more people were killed and died of disease and starvation than have even started to be killed in the present tragedy; there was a gap in his memory.
I do not blame anyone for what happened then, but everybody knows that between 1 million and 3 million Hindus and Muslims, displaced when the two countries were formed, died because of the tension between the two countries.

That was a very sad event, in which, I am afraid, the British generally had a certain responsibility, in that perhaps we did not foresee exactly what the consequences of partition at that time would be. But to pretend that today there is anything like the scale of slaughter is to ignore far worse tragedies of 1947–48. It would be as unfair to criticise the then Government for not taking an initiative to stop that as it is unfair for the right hon. Gentleman to accuse us today of not taking an initiative to stop what is going on.
We are now seeing a bubbling to the surface of the same tensions as have bedevilled the Indian sub-continent since British rule ended in 1947. It has concentrated around Junagahr and Kashmir and half a dozen other parts of India and Pakistan where communal tensions have broken out. In recent years there have been communal riots in Pakistan against the Hindus and there have been communal riots in India against the Muslims. These tensions rarely hit the headlines, but they have been going on steadily for the last 20 years.
The situation now is that even if there is a settlement in East Pakistan, or Pakistan generally—and God knows that we ought to try to get a settlement—it will not solve the problem, in the sense that those refugees who have left East Pakistan for communal reasons will not go back again. The evidence is that such refugees never return. All the people who left the former Muslim areas to go to India did not return to those areas and those who left India to go to Pakistan did not return. By the time they might have returned their homes and farms had gone.
We ought not to fool ourselves into believing that those refugees who have left East Bengal because they are Hindus will have their problem solved merely by the setting up of a couple of provincial parliaments which will lead to everyone patting everyone else on the back. Far from all these refugees will go back, although many might be induced to go back if they were genuinely loyal to the concept of Pakistan and were Muslim and would rather return to their fatherland. But the emotions of the others are directed towards India, and if they can be absorbed into India, it is much


more likely that they would wish that to happen.
To those who do not believe that I am making sense, I can only say that I know a little more about the tensions of this sub-continent than do some others. I know exactly how strong are the feelings in India and Pakistan on the religious grounds which I have mentioned. It would be idle to deny that these communal tensions are playing a supplementary, but no less damaging, rôle in the tragedy which we are witnessing.
I said that it did not help matters by making violent accusations in the House against one side or the other, or taking sides. The history of the events is not quite as it has been outlined by one or two Labour Members. Before the election, all the Pakistani political leaders signed a document, called the basic agreement, in which they agreed that, whoever won the election, the integrity of the State of Pakistan would be absolute. That is rarely mentioned in the House. But when the election was won, the popularly elected Awami League in East Pakistan put forward political and economic proposals which would have led to the separation of the State in defiance of the basic agreement.

Mr. Julius Silverman: Surely the hon. Gentleman knows that the planks put forward by Sheikh Mujibur during the election were those which he put forward during his negotiations with General Yahya Khan?

Sir F. Bennett: I have been studiously careful not to make accusations of ill faith against either side. I have made a statement of fact. Whatever may or may not have been said during the election, or during the negotiations, the fact remains that one thing which led to the outbreak of the tragedy was that the proposition put forward by the victorious Awami League contravened the basic agreement which all the leaders had signed. It is not merely a matter of my saying that. Anybody who doubts that statement can look at the documents and see that the basic agreement was contravened.
By all means let us see what we can do to bring about a settlement, but I urge my hon. Friends to accept that threats from this country will not be of any use because they are ineffective for

the simple reason that we cannot do anything about enforcing them. A Pakistani said to me the other day, "How would you feel if, when the Pakistan Parliament was first created, we had had a debate about the fact that we were going to break off relations with Great Britain until she found a political solution in Northern Ireland? We have as much right to talk to you about finding a political settlement as you have to talk to us about finding one."
The time when, as leader of the Commonwealth, we could enforce our will on others has come to an end. We are all equal sovereign countries, and we have no more right to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan, which we may not regard as internal than she has a right to interfere in our internal affairs, which she in her turn may not regard as internal.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. Peter Shore: I find myself with very little time, and, having listened to the intemperate intervention of the hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett), I am greatly tempted to give myself up wholly to the task of trying to correct the distortions that he has introduced into this debate, but I shall satisfy myself with one sentence. If the Pakistan army in East Bengal were using rubber bullets, then I would accept what the hon. Gentleman said about us not having the right, after considerable time and thought, to give a moral judgment on what they are doing for fear that they, in turn, might give a judgment on our policy in Northern Ireland.

Sir F. Bennett: I did not say that.

Mr. Shore: I am not interested in what the hon. Gentleman has further to say. The next time he intervenes in a debate, he ought to do us the courtesy of listening to what others say before he comes in and acts as a spokesman. I do not know, but perhaps he is simply rehashing and regurgitating the output of the Pakistan High Commission, which I too receive, but which I do not feel I necessarily have an obligation to repeat.
That has released a certain amount of my feelings, but nothing like enough. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one thing only. I do not think our main job in approaching these matters is to satisfy ourselves and our feelings. I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he


says that anyone who is serious about these matters should attempt to speak with as much restraint as possible and with a view to helping the situation as much as he can.
Having said that, I will now deal with the situation itself. The first thing to remember—this is why we are having the debate—is that, in the words of the Foreign Secretary yesterday, the situation is getting worse. This is an emergency debate. It was meant to be a debate on overseas aid, but we are having this debate because 10 weeks after these events began 5 million refugees who have been affected by them have crossed the frontier into India, and there are still masses of people on the move in East Bengal. We are seeing the de-urbanisation about which one of the six privileged correspondents allowed into East Bengal wrote in the Financial Times. We hear of the movement of people from the cities back to their villages, and from the villages into the countryside.
That has been happening on a scale and in a way that defies comparison with anything that we know of, other than the one event to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the tragedy in the Punjab in 1947. Apart from that situation, can any hon. Member cite another instance of 5 million people being pushed out of, and running away from, their own country, their villages and their land?
Why have the people done that? This is not a sporadic and uncontrolled explosion of communal violence. It is not that which has produced the present situation. It has been brought about by the actions of a highly disciplined army. Anyone who knows anything about the Pakistan army knows that it is not an army which does not obey its officers. It is a highly-trained and disciplined army. It has inherited a tradition of training and high effectiveness, and it is behaving as it is, presumably, because its commanders have told it that this is the way in which it must behave.
I am not here to bandy accusations against the Pakistan Government. There is a great deal about which I do not know. I could suggest a number of ways in which people like myself and the hon. Member for Torquay could be helped to arrive at a fair decision. One way is to let people in, to push aside what I call the "iron curtain" that has sur-

rounded East Bengal since all the correspondents were swept together and pushed out of the country in case they saw the events that followed. We are entitled to make certain connections between the events. I cannot say exactly what has happened but I know that 5 million people have left their homes. They have not merely left their homes but have fled from East Bengal into India. They have fled mainly from their co-religionists, not as a result of unco-ordinated communal violence, which we have known about in the Indian sub-continent ever since we have had anything to do with it, though there may be an element of that——

Mr. Money: Mr. Money rose——

Mr. Shore: I shall not give way.
We would like to know the reason for what has happened, and I do not think that it is right for the hon. Gentleman to claim that hon. Members who have been to the area and tried to assess for themselves what the facts are should be abused for giving some witness to them when they come back. What are they expected to do? Are they to be silent? Having visited the hospitals and seen the wounds, are they supposed to come back and say that they would not want to upset the Pakistan authorities as that might exacerbate the situation, and instead of 5 million people being driven out, 10 million may suffer that fate? Is that what we are being told? If it is, I think that those who tell us that would do better to be quiet and let their silence speak for them. It would speak more effectively than their words.
What do we do about the political situation? How can we be most effective? One way in which we can be effective is for the Government to speak out. Of course, they cannot speak as frankly, as clearly and as strongly as hon. Members should speak. Hon. Members are not dealing directly with the Pakistan Government, but the latter should know that the people of this country do not lightly take reports of events of the kind that are going on there, that our friendship is not sustained and won when we hear of events of wanton violence being inflicted on a people who we know, because of our experience with the Indian sub-continent,


are in themselves not a violent people. On the contrary, they have always, in the Indian tradition, been a rather peaceful people.
We know that, and we know that they have won an election. That is apparently what triggered off these events. What do we do? At least we protest, and have a right to protest, against the brutality of an army. Good heavens—a general who wanted to crush a democracy—it is not the first time it has happened—can do it without expelling 5 million people from his country. This is an overkill of brutality and violence of a kind of which we have not seen the like before.
So we can protest about that, but what can we do? We can do some of the things which I am glad to see the Government are doing diplomatically. They are saying to the Pakistan Government, "We will not give you the aid and the money you need, other than for immediate refugee and relief purposes. We are not going to help you out with your economy." They are saying it and putting it in a way which is quite right from their point of view. They are saying, "You could not even make use of it in the chaos you have created in your own land. Your administration has broken down. The whole bonds of confidence between people and Government have been so shattered; you are in such a state that you would not know what to do with it."
I think that they are right and that this is a strong point of pressure which the Pakistan Government have got to consider; they must consider their own future, because the problems of West Pakistan are going to mount—and most considerably in the next few weeks.
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) in what he said about bringing in some outside body. I do not think this wretched man who is ruler of Pakistan today can unpick this problem. What can he do? What do we say to him—"Go back the long journey from the third week in March; go back all that way, through all that sea of blood and disaster, and now do what you deliberately did not do eight or ten weeks ago."? It is not very realistic.
We must help him create a political infrastructure, help him with a mixture

of pressure and suggestion and, above all, in some way or other bring into the situation a new element—whether it be a Commonwealth element or a United Nations element—which will give some confidence to people that there can be a return to normality, that there can be safety for people who are still fleeing at the rate of 130,000 a day. It has got to be done, and done quickly.
The plain truth is this, more than in any other issue I know—the Foreign Secretary admitted it yesterday—that we cannot have even a relief or humanitarian solution until we start getting the political solution right. It is on both of these grounds that the Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Government and this House have to urge and press.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: I support the view that aid for India or Pakistan cannot be divorced from the political situation. We have already heard that refugees are pouring into India at the rate of 130,000 every day. A population of 1 million, the size of Birmingham, is coming into India in little more than a week and, whatever the situation today, if this continues—by every sign it is not merely continuing but accelerating—a problem will be created which will mean a financial burden too much for India to bear, and considerable even for the international community.
We have heard the figures today. It is estimated that the cost to India over the six months will be £165 million. If the number increases to 10 million, which is within the bounds of possibility, just think what a burden that will be. It would be quite impossible for a poor country like India. Even for the international community it would mean an enormous burden. So far—let us face the fact—the response has not been very great. Even so far as this country is concerned, by ordinary standards our contribution has been generous, but it is nowhere near adequate to meet the terrific problem being created in India.
We must examine the political situation. How can this flood of refugees be stemmed? Only by a political solution in East Bengal. The Foreign Secretary said yesterday that he had been told by


the High Commissioner for Pakistan that attempts are being made to create some sort of civilian government. If this government is going to consist of a few stooges which by all appearances is the sort of government Yahya Khan is trying to introduce, this should not meet the Foreign Secretary's proposals that there should be a correct and proper political situation for aid to go in.
Aid is tied to this. It is said in India—and I think it is largely true—that without the aid given by the Pakistan consortium, and other countries of the West, Pakistan would be bankrupt and could not survive. It is also said that Pakistan could not continue to conduct this war against East Pakistan without this assistance. If that is correct, we have some obligation in this matter. We should use this as a lever. I do not like using levers or political sanctions against under-developed countries in order to tell them how to run their own affairs, but I do not think that this is an internal matter of Pakistan's. It is not a question of how Pakistan is governing herself. How she governs herself in West Pakistan is her own business, whether it is democratic or not, but this is not an internal matter. There should be no squeamishness in exercising pressure.
Moreover, if this war is being carried on with our money—as it is being carried on with arms supplied largely from the West—we have some responsibility here. I want to ask the Minister to answer one or two questions on this matter of aid. Firstly, until a political situation is created in East Bengal which will allow the resumption of aid, would he consider proposing to the Pakistan aid consortium that some of the money available should be diverted to assist the Pakistan refugees in India? That should be, primarily, the responsibility of the Pakistan Government and is therefore a proper method for which this money should be used in the meantime.

Mr. Crouch: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not forget that former tragedy when people were washed out of the ground by the typhoon and the floods, for which aid is still required. It is not their fault that they are suffering in a civil war. To use aid as a sanction could be dangerous.

Mr. Silverman: I do not propose that this should be used as a sanction at all. The point is that at present, unfortunately, this money cannot be used in East Pakistan because the organisation is not there; neither is it certain that it would get to the places for which it is destined.
I am not proposing to use this money as a sanction. It would be wrong to victimise innocent people for the crimes of their Government. However, when the time arrives, which I hope will be soon, for finance to be sent to the area for which it is intended—in East Pakistan or Bengal, whatever Government are in control—what assurances will be exacted from the Pakistan Government to ensure that the money is used both for the victims of the disaster in Bengal and for the victims of the even greater disaster which has been imposed by the military in Pakistan? It is essential for us to be certain that the money will be used for the purpose for which it is sent, and that purpose alone.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: I am glad that we are having this debate about what is undoubtedly the most appalling, the most predictable and the most unnecessary disaster since the war, though it is a matter of shame to this House that so few hon. Members are in their place to take part in and listen to it.
I welcomed what the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said about the willingness of the British Government to provide additional aid for the refugees. Unfortunately, however, helping the refugees is only tackling the symptom and not the cause.
I am glad that we have reached the stage in the debate, as it draws to a close, when we are discussing whether it is legitimate for us to take political steps to intervene to prevent the slaughter in East Bengal and, if so, whether there is anything effective that we can do.
If I understand the case that was presented by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) and the hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett), they said, in effect, that because there was such strict censorship and relatively little information, we should stand back and do nothing. Does the hon. Member


for Bradford, West really believe that we cannot accept the information which is coming from the refugees, from reputable sources in East Bengal and from the right hon. Member for Wednes-bury (Mr. Stonehouse), the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) and myself?

Mr. Wilkinson: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to clarify the point. I said clearly that in this appalling tragedy we should not stand idly by but should use our good influences for reconciliation and so encourage as much as possible the movement of refugees back to their homelands.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would tell me how a dead person can be reconciled.
Whole peoples are being deliberately reduced in numbers. I have received a number of letters from highly reputable people in the area. I cannot name them or identify them too closely, because they are still in East Bengal. I refer to English people who have spent their lives there. They have reported objectively and sincerely. One writes:
Until March I reckoned that Pakistan had a better record than India in the treatment of minorities, but now it is genocide, with the killing of Hindus only because they are Hindus and with Muslims killing not only Hindus but their co-religionists as well. The people everywhere are terrorised.
The stories which these letters tell are harrowing. The House has already heard enough of them for me not to need to quote further. It is undoubtedly true that a whole people are being deliberately destroyed. They are being driven out of their country and the terrorising tactics being adopted can have only one possible outcome, and that is the ultimate independence of Bangla Desh.
That was not necessary until the night of 25th March but, as a result of what has happened, it is now pointless even to discuss the question of reconciliation and the possible reunification of Pakistan. Pakistan is dead. It has been buried under millions of bodies and I fear that we have not yet seen the worst.

Mr. Julius Silverman: Just for the record, my hon. Friend is, of course, referring to East Pakistan?

Mr. Douglas-Mann: I am saying that Pakistan as a unit and as a unity is dead.

The only solution which will provide any possibility of relief for the people of East Bengal is for the West Pakistan Army to be forced to withdraw by economic pressures and sanctions.
The hon. Member for Torquay wondered whether there was anything really effective that we could do. I believe that we have a great deal of power in this situation. This war is costing West Pakistan 2 million dollars a day. Its reserves are virtually exhausted and it has a chronic deficit. I have recent reports which suggest that its economy is on the point of collapse.
I accept the sincerity of hon. Gentlemen opposite who say that even greater hardship would be created if aid were cut off. I agree that development aid for specific projects—if they are not producing foreign exchange—should continue, but I fear that the aid that is now going to Pakistan is helping only to finance the war and that if we continue to provide it we will not be feeding the victims but the army from which the refugees are fleeing. East and West Pakistan are 1,000 miles apart. Food shipments going to East Bengal now will help only to strengthen the army and thereby provide more material for the mills of war. It is not only a question of aid. There is the more important issue of credit for this failing, near-bankrupt economy. It will not be able to carry on the war unless it receives help from the international community.
I urge the Government to use the weapons at our disposal in this situation. We have clear evidence of the danger of war breaking out between India and Pakistan. As the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said, India has so far exercised great restraint, but for how long can it continue to do so? Faced with guerrillas operating from what are undoubtedly bases in India, for how long will West Pakistan accept this? How long will it be before border incidents escalate into war?
A short time remains for economic sanctions to be applied and so to bring the war to an end. That will happen only if those sanctions are applied stringently, effectively and rapidly. If they do not work and if West Pakistan is not compelled to withdraw its forces, not only will millions die of disease, but


even more millions will die from starvation, because crops cannot be sown and food cannot be imported. Even more dangerous is the overwhelming possibility of war developing between India and Pakistan.
It has been suggested that the West Pakistan army should be used to distribute aid and relief in East Bengal. Anyone who has discussed this suggestion with those who have been in the area recently appreciate how ludicrous it is. It would make the situation worse. The relief would be used as a weapon of oppression. In any event, the West Pakistan army does not have an administrative network through which to distribute aid in the areas where it is most needed.
We in Britain and the international community have a responsibility to compel West Pakistan to come to its senses before it is too late and before a world war results from this act of brutal repression by the military government of West Pakistan.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. George Thomson: This has been a sombre and harrowing debate. In all quarters of the House there has been a sense of the human tragedy which really numbs the imagination. On 19th November last year, during a debate in the House on the East Pakistan floods, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) described those floods as one of the most tragic of natural catastrophies in recorded history. I do not think that any of us, in our darkest imaginings, could have believed at that time that within a few months there would be a man-made disaster in East Pakistan, however grave, which would overshadow the natural disaster of the floods.
I heard this morning from United Nations sources that the number of refugees from East Pakistan now in West Bengal has reached the figure of 5 million—a figure approaching the total population of my country, Scotland.
In a passionate and eloquent speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) referred to a recent article in the Financial Times by one of the few journalists allowed by the Pakistan authorities to visit East Pakistan. That journalist used these words:

The casualties of the wave of violence which overwhelmed East Pakistan on the night of March 25 run into hundreds of thousands, and possibly into millions. … More violence seems certain. Famine may be unavoidable. There are no simple answers—just palliatives, not cures".
I suspect that this is the appalling reality of the situation which we in the House are grappling with today. It is against that dark and threatening background that I say straight away that I agree with the priorities that the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary put before the House al the beginning of the debate: first, the top priority of dealing as adequately as we can with the provision of relief for the immediate suffering, both in India and Pakistan; second, to do anything that we can to encourage a political solution which would enable the refugees to return to their homelands.
With regard to the relief aspect, I welcome the Foreign Secretary's statement that the Government are ready to do substantially more in both India and Pakistan. I thought that Her Majesty's Government gave a good lead to the international relief effort at the beginning. I think that we were the first to contribute. For too long the British contribution represented too big a proportion of the international effort and, therefore, I join in the appeal from this House to other nations to contribute to this effort. The United States have now announced that they are giving the equivalent of £7 million, and that indicates the scale on which we should now be thinking about our contribution. The international contribution to the United Nations effort now amounts to about £13 million but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) indicated, the Indian Government's calculation is that to deal with 2½ million refugees for a period of six months would require £70 million. As I have mentioned, the refugee figure has now probably reached the 5 million mark, so one has some indication of the scale of relief required in India alone.
On behalf of this side of the House, perhaps I ought to make it clear that we do not doubt the Government's generosity or willingness to respond adequately to this challenge, but we were anxious at the weekend about their sense of urgency. We should have preferred it if the first of the R.A.F. relief aircraft had


taken off on Saturday or Sunday, rather than having to wait that extra day or two. I thought that the Secretary of State was a little over sensitive about this in the exchanges at Question Time yesterday. I well remember him prodding me at the time of the Nigeria debates—quite rightly, because it is the duty of an Opposition to prod—about whether we were doing all that we could regarding dropping aid by helicopters. The view that we as a Government then took of these disasters, whether natural or man-made, was that it was better to over-react than to under-react.
When the Nigerian civil war came to an end, we immediately, that very weekend, made urgent provision for transport and relief funds, and we sent out Lord Hunt to make an on-the-spot assessment. In the event, we did more than was needed. But the fact that we were willing to make a very substantial sum of money available, and to state that at the beginning, gave the voluntary agencies the necessary confidence to go ahead with their plans.
I was glad that the Foreign Secretary indicated that the Government are using all their influence to persuade the Pakistan Government to make themselves open to United Nations relief efforts, and we must all hope that the visit of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to West Pakistan and the visit of the Secretary General's personal representative to East Pakistan will bear fruit.
I certainly hear harrowing reports of the human suffering in East Pakistan, but I am afraid that the blood does not flow all one way. Certainly there has been appalling violence by the Pakistan army, but equally I hear of a rather forgotten refugee camp near Dacca containing pitiful victims from the West Pakistani and Bihari Muslim communities who suffered at the hands of their East Bengali fellow citizens.
One of the difficulties of restoring normal economic life is that the Bengalis will not travel up country in East Pakistan for fear of the army, and Bihari Muslims will not travel up country for fear of the Bengalis. There is this terrible task of trying to restore mutual confidence among the various communities in East Pakistan. It is this situation of paralysis and fear which causes the danger of

famine in East Bengal to grow and to match the refugee problem in West Bengal.
I was, therefore, glad to hear what seemed to be the wise words of the Foreign Secretary about the need for a political solution, a political framework, as a precondition for the return of refugees. As the Foreign Secretary said, that must be decided by the people of Pakistan themselves. But I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) that one crucial act of reconciliation that the Pakistan Government could make would be to announce the abandonment of any trial of Sheikh Mujibur and, indeed, to attempt to involve him again in the search for a political settlement.
I share the fears expressed by a number of my hon. Friends about the meaning which may be attached to a "political settlement". A political settlement in this situation can mean only exactly what the words state. It will not be a settlement unless it is acceptable to the mass of the people of East Pakistan. The Foreign Secretary is absolutely right. The relief cannot work and we cannot deal with the human suffering in East Pakistan unless there is that kind of political settlement. I am told, for instance, that the northern sector of the province, which traditionally is an area producing a major grain surplus, is not adequately under the control of the army, so even if the army were to be a satisfactory means of distributing relief—and grave doubts were expressed about that by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann)—it is unable to do this in certain areas of the country.
The mood of the House today has been that, against the scale of human suffering, the international community now has a duty to provide itself with machinery and resources on an adequate scale to deal with this problem and to back them up with the necessary will to use them. I share the hope expressed by, I think, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) that one useful byproduct of the present agony may be the creation of a permanent United Nations machinery to deal with disasters of this kind, whether natural or man-made.
We welcome what the Foreign Secretary has already done in helping forward the moves to create a machinery for


United Nations co-ordination. I entirely share the view which my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), an expert in these matters, expressed in the opening speech from this side about the need for such co-ordinating machinery to be more than that and to have physical resources at its disposal. She mentioned the need for it to have stock-piles available for immediate use. Speaking in my shadowy defence capacity, I add that I should like to see the national members of the United Nations asked to earmark appropriate parts of their defence forces—I am thinking here particularly of logistic forces—to be specially trained and to be at the ready to co-operate immediately they are asked to do so by the United Nations machine concerned with dealing with disasters of this kind.
This is much more than a question of dealing with the forbidding problem of relief in India or Pakistan. If there is not here an urgent matter threatening peace and endangering the security of others, I do not know what a threat to peace is. That is why we on this side have called on Her Majesty's Government to raise the question of the Pakistani refugees politically at the United Nations as well as dealing with it as a United Nations relief problem.
I do not know whether a formal inscription on the Security Council agenda is the best way to do that. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), who has pretty shrewd judgment on these matters, expressed some doubt about whether that was likely to be the most constructive way to go about it. But, whatever way it be done, the reconciling and mediatory side of the United Nations should be brought to bear on this problem before it deteriorates further.
We all recognise in the House the reasons which prevent either Pakistan or India from taking an initiative at the United Nations in that sense, but those reasons do not necessarily apply to Her Majesty's Government. Both India and Pakistan are Commonwealth countries. As the Foreign Secretary has said—echoed by many hon. Members—India has shown remarkable restraint in the face of an invading army of refugees. But guerrilla war and shooting are taking place all the time along this tortured

frontier. This cannot go on endlessly without matters growing gravely worse.
Mutual relations between India and Pakistan have been dangerously damaged. We already have a situation in which the Soviet Union, on one side, and the Chinese Government, on the other, are backing either side in the internal quarrel within Pakistan. By any standards, this must be a situation which seriously threatens the peace of that region, and it is for that reason that we on this side urge that Britain should give a lead, perhaps first consulting other members of the Commonwealth, in taking an initiative and invoking the political good offices of the United Nations, working not simply on the relief side but directing its efforts to deal urgently and actively with the implications of this tragedy for the peace and security of Asia.

7.44 p.m.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): My right hon. Friend the Lord President suggested yesterday, and I think the House accepted, that the debate on the problems in the Indian sub-continent should come to an end at about 8 o'clock and that we should for three hours thereafter discuss more general aspects of aid. I hope that the House will agree to my trying, first, to answer the points which have been raised since my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's speech at the beginning of the debate and then, if I may, going straight on to open the debate on aid. Later, if the House can face a second speech from me and will give me leave, I shall be glad to have an opportunity to answer the points which are raised in the second debate.
My right hon. Friend listened to a considerable part of this debate, and I have heard very nearly all of it. My impression is that the spirit of the debate has been almost entirely constructive. Most hon. Members have looked to the future rather than to the past. I am ashamed to say that I have spoken twice on this subject—on 14th May—and, rather than try to add much to my right hon. Friend's speech, perhaps I may take it that my most helpful contribution would be to promise on his behalf that we shall together consider the constructive suggestions which have been made today by hon. Members on both sides. There are,


however, one or two particular matters to which I wish now to refer.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) spoke of the possibility of making further financial contributions. Having listened to the debate for the past few hours, and in particular, after hearing what was just said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. George Thomson), I am beginning to wonder whether there is any great division between us on this matter.
There are the needs of the refugees in West Bengal. As several hon. Members have said, there will be considerable financial burdens on India herself. There are the needs, which I hope, will soon begin to be met, of relief and reconstruction in East Pakistan, and—I say this in response to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson)—I am hopeful that an operation there can soon be mounted under the auspices and help of the United Nations itself.
There are all these needs, and I have little doubt that Great Britain will have seriously to consider a contribution in all three directions. It is important, therefore, that the needs should all be examined. The House knows that my right hon. Friend has shown no reluctance whatever in being willing to make a further contribution either in the direction of relief for refugees in West Bengal or in the other directions, but what he is not convinced of at the moment, I think, is that there is solid evidence that it is lack of money which is in any way holding back relief operations. If such evidence were produced, he would consider it most seriously, and, especially in the light of what the right hon. Lady said and the experience which we all remember in Nigeria, I am sure that the House of Commons would find him sympathetic.
The right hon. Lady spoke of the need to co-ordinate the British charities with the World Health Organisation. The position there, I am told, is that the British charities have set up a co-ordinating office which is in direct touch with the W.H.O. and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
There has been no doubt in the debate about the value which hon. Members on both sides place on the work of the

voluntary societies, and I am glad to repeat the tribute to their work which my right hon. Friend has already paid. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) mentioned the possibility of the charities operating actively in East Pakistan. I share his hope that the Pakistan Government will be ready to allow the voluntary agencies to work there, although I think it likely that, when the operation of relief and reconstruction begins, the greatest need will be for supplies rather than personnel.
Several hon. Members have mentioned, as did the right hon. Lady herself, the need for some international co-ordination of relief. My right hon. Friend's memorandum has been mentioned. There has been some interest in this subject. The memorandum, which will be incorporated in the Secretary-General's report to the Economic and Social Council, was published on 7th June, and, if the House agrees, I would like to place a copy in the library so that hon. Gentlemen can study it carefully. This report will be discussed in the Economic and Social Council in July, and our hope is that the General Assembly in the autumn will approve an effective system for the international co-ordination of relief. This is certainly the timetable to which we shall be working.
As regards permanent action in the United Nations, we obviously have to await further action but Mr. Hill, the Secretary-General's special adviser on disaster relief, has recently been in London and we have emphasised to him our views and the need for urgency in setting up an efficient, central United Nations organisation for the continuous review and co-ordination of resources and available aid for disaster relief. The right hon. Lady mentioned the possibility of using this disaster organisation for both man-made and natural disasters. This will obviously be a matter to be decided but we see no reason why it should not be employed in all kinds of disasters, whether natural or, as in this case, the result of action by human beings.
The right hon. Lady and other hon. Members have mentioned the question of stockpiling. If I may quote from the memorandum of my right hon. Friend, the suggestion is that the co-ordinator, who has been mentioned several times


during the debate, would also make recommendations:
… to the Governments of potential victim States about which stocks were likely to be particularly helpful, so that either from their own resources or with international assistance, they could consider suitable stockpiling policies and identify their requirements in the event of a disaster.
Paragraph 10 of the memorandum suggests that:
Some countries might wish to maintain special stockpiles of supplies or earmark personnel for disaster relief".
It is this kind of idea which will not only be fruitful but will provide a large part of the answer to the plea which has been rightly put forward by many.
In concluding my remarks on this part of the debate, I must say that I was glad to hear the right hon. Member for Wed-nesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) suggesting—I hope that I got his words reasonably right—that it was not for us to dictate a settlement in Pakistan. That is entirely my view. The hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes), to whom I listened with interest because of his recent experience in that part of the world, asked us how hard Her Majesty's Government were pressing the President of Pakistan in these matters.
These exchanges are obviously confidential, and it is always very difficult to explain how hard one presses. My right hon. Friend is completely convinced that a peaceful political settlement, which is the objective of a large number of hon. Members, is also the sincere objective of President Yahya Khan. Anyone who takes account of the whole situation now existing on the Indian sub-continent knows how much depends on a settlement of this kind. The hon. Members for Brentford and Chiswick was particularly interested in this, and said I had not made entirely clear exactly where we stood, particularly in relation to aid.
I am always shy of quoting earlier speeches of mine, but on 14th May I said:
We are ready … to resume aid for development, but we can clearly do so only if conditions are restored in which that aid could be effectively deployed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th May, 1971; Vol. 817, c. 767.]
This means, if I may further interpret it, that there must be evident to us all real steps towards a political settlement. The hon. Members and others have asked

what kind of settlement we have in mind. I doubt whether it is for us to dictate the kind of settlement that must take place except to say that it must obviously, in the words of the right hon. Member for Dundee, East, be acceptable to the population in the sense that it will lead to the necessary stability which must exist before we can resume any constructive aid operation.
In answer to the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick, it is difficult to say exactly in what circumstances and how we shall resume aid and particularly in relation to the financial situation that may exist in Pakistan. There is a mission in West Pakistan at the moment considering the whole question of the future and we must await its report before we can decide what our view should be.

Mr. Dan Jones: May I ask the Minister if it is the Government's view that the present régime in West Pakistan wants a peaceful settlement on a democratic basis?

Mr. Wood: This is exactly the view I have expressed. I am convinced that the President is determined, if possible, to achieve a political settlement of the kind the hon. Member has in mind. I would add that no one thinks that in any circumstances at present this will be easy to achieve, but we shall all be making an appalling mistake if we think that there is any other possible satisfactory solution to the present suffering going on there.

Mr. Jones: We shall be making an even greater mistake if we tolerate this situation.

Mr. Wood: Much as I dislike losing any hon. Members who are listening to my speech, I must say that I have now ceased talking about Pakistan and am beginning to talk about aid. Therefore, any hon. Members who are interested only in Pakistan will have to go.

Mr. W. T. Williams: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the issue of Pakistan and the question of a reasonable political settlement, which we all agree is the only way with which this situation can be dealt, would he be kind enough to express any concern he may feel about the situation as it applies particularly to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman? The right hon. Gentleman will know that


there have been several references to this man in the debate and that he is the overwhelmingly elected leader of East Pakistan. At the moment he is rotting in gaol. Have any representations been made? Will the right hon. Gentleman express any concern about this situation continuing? Will the Government express their anxieties that this man should be brought back into a position from which he can make a contribution to a political settlement, as the real embodiment of the point of view of millions of people in Pakistan?

Mr. Wood: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been mentioned by the right hon. Member for Dundee, East, who has explained to me why he has had to leave the debate, and also by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). The position is that I would be giving away no secrets if I said that there had been communications between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Pakistan about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. To answer the hon. and learned Gentleman, I must say that I could not give any further information beyond that. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been the subject of exchanges between the two Governments.

OVERSEAS AID

8.0 p.m.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): We come now to the debate on aid. This is not a debate specifically on the report of the Select Committee, but it obviously has a close connection with it and I would like to thank the Committee very sincerely for its work. I am sorry, as I believe a number of us will be, that its first chairman, Miss Herbison, is no longer a Member of Parliament and, therefore, unable to take part in our debates. I and my Department and, I think, the whole House are indebted to her, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), the present Chairman, and those who worked with them, for the penetrating and thorough examination they made. Like other important examinations, this one had for us its painful moments, but my advisers take an admirably philosophic view, and they all assure me that they feel the better for it.

It is the purpose of Select Committees, and now indeed for the Expenditure Committee, to make Departments sit up and take notice, and this examination has done just that.
As the House knows, my immediate response to the recommendations has been contained in the White Paper, Cmnd. 4687, which was published last week. The thoughtful and valuable analysis by the Committee of some knotty problems is, I am quite certain, going to influence thinking and action far beyond the scope of any immediate exchanges which we have tonight.
As the House knows, the Second Development Decade was inaugurated at the United Nations General Assembly last year. The strategy was set out and has been widely supported by a very large number of nations, but a great many countries, including Britain, declared certain reservations to it. One item of the strategy was the well-known 1 per cent. target, which is the measure of national net capital resource flows from developed to developing countries. By international agreement this now includes grants by voluntary organisations. To these voluntary organisations we have already paid tribute earlier today.
The voluntary grants from Britain in 1970 amounted to the impressive figure of £17 million. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last October announced the intention of Great Britain to do her best to reach the 1 per cent. target by 1975 in the expectation that private flows would go on making substantial contributions. Because of the high private flows both in 1969 and in 1970 we would seem—I think it is almost certain, although final figures are not available—to have reached the 1 per cent. target in both those years, 1969 and 1970. The private flows were unusually high in both those years. We are now taking steps, as the House knows, to increase official aid and also to stimulate private investment in developing countries.
The official aid programme is at present £245 million. In 1974–75 it will be £340 million, which is a 50 per cent. increase over the five-year period and represents a higher rate of growth than almost any other sector. It is obvious that official aid is vitally important


because it has special characteristics which make it indispensable to the developing countries.
The Government have no intention, as I have said on a number of occasions, of accepting a separate target for official aid. We attach great importance to private investment as well, and we believe that the mixture between private and official flows will vary from country to country according to their particular circumstances.
The increasing programme makes it possible for us to undertake new initiatives which have not been possible before. We have still to look after dependencies and countries which are desperately poor as well as taking account of our historical links and perhaps historical obligations, but we intend to move into some new areas. We are planning an increasing programme for Indonesia, which I was lucky enough recently to visit. We are trying to develop aid relationships with Latin America, and there are other countries outside the Commonwealth, both in the Far East and and in Africa, where a British contribution would be both welcome and useful.
I sometimes feel that we put too much emphasis on the size of the official programme, important as that is, and too little on distribution and quality of the aid which we give. There are various aspects of this. I am convinced that multilateral aid is likely to form in the future a considerably increased share in the total programme. Immediately after this debate we are going to be considering two draft Orders to de made by my right hon. Friend. These concern at important multilateral body, the International Development Association. Through this association and other bodies we intend to continue to play our full part in making aid available for development.
There is the question also of budgetary aid. It has long been the Government's policy, as the right hon. Lady will know, to try to bring the provision of budgetary aid to an end, and perhaps most because it requires a degree of probing into the affairs of another country which does not always accord very happily with the concept of independence. Budgetary aid has been running down very considerably over

recent years, and this can renew our faith in the whole development process. Malawi, I think, is an outstanding example, but there has been similar progress with the three small independent countries in Southern Africa which have been assisted by revision of their customs agreement with South Africa.
Another important aspect of the quality of aid which is now receiving international attention is the extent to which it is provided on an untied basis—in other words, the extent to which it is not restricted to procurement in the donor country. For many years it has been the general view of most developed countries and of developing countries that it would be helpful both to the effectiveness of aid and to international trade if all donors could agree to untie their aid, and Great Britain has throughout taken this view. At a high level meeting of the Development Assistance Committee last September the Government reaffirmed their view that contributions to multilateral institutions should not be tied, and that we were ready to work for agreement on untying bilateral development loans as long as enough other donors agreed. I am glad to say that there has been substantial progress on the form of possible agreement between donors covering full untying of multilateral aid and of all bilateral development loans.
Lastly on the question of the quality and kind of aid we give, I have been convinced since my arrival at the Ministry of Overseas Development, as it then was, of the importance of the technical assistance which we give in a vast number of countries round the world, because one of the most important contributions which, it seems to me, this country and other developed countries have to offer is the sharing of management and other skills which we have been fortunate enough to build up in our own process of development. I have been impressed, during my visits to a number of the developing countries, by the absence of what has been described to me as the human infrastructure and by our own opportunity and ability to fill that gap.
I have already informed the House of my plans for reconstituting the council with the very formidable name, the Council for Technical Education and Training in Overseas Countries, more


cosily known as T.E.T.O.C. The object of the Council, as many hon. Members know, is to increase the aid for technical education, management, and practical training in industry. All these, I have found by my short experience, are immensely necessary if we hope to increase local industrial activity, and the Government hope that they will be particularly assisted by our own private investment.
The Chairman of the Council, Sir Frederick Pedler, who has a wide knowledge of industry and commerce both here and overseas, with the reorganised T.E.T.O.C. will build up a professional staff which will be able to estimate more accurately the needs of the developing countries and help to supply those needs in close co-operation with my Department. I have every confidence that the Council, drawing on its practical experience of industry, commerce and education, will be able to deal with what is going to be a very big task.
As the official programme grows and, I hope, as private investment also grows and the two become more closely connected, it is clear to me and anyone who knows anything about the operations of my Department that the aid management responsibilities of my Department will increase. Last March, in a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill, initiated by the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham), I mentioned—I hope he thought frankly—the problem of the ability of my Department effectively to spend available money.
The Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have also drawn attention to this problem, which has existed for some time. There are two main aspects of it. First, aid programmes have up to now been fixed as gross annual cash sums which can be spent to the limit but not beyond. A total which cannot be exceeded tends not to be a target so much as a ceiling which it is difficult to reach without running serious risk of over-spending. I am glad to see that the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) from his great experience, finds that familiar. Rapid changes which events sometimes force on an aid programme in the course of any one year make it

exceptionally difficult to attain a precise out-turn while still maintaining the quality of the aid provided. The second problem is the permanent loss to international development—a point made earlier by the hon. Gentleman—of aid resources if the full programme is not spent in any one year.
In the light of these two difficulties, I consulted Treasury Ministers, and I am able, with their agreement, to announce some improvements. From this present year, subject, obviously, to Parliamentary authority for any necessary supplementary Vote, it will be possible for my Department to exceed the aid programme total for the year by up to £5 million. This should make that total more of a target than a ceiling and will increase our ability to come a bit nearer the target than we sometimes manage to do.
Moreover, Treasury Ministers have agreed that if the programme is still under-spent they will consider proposals, in the circumstances that exist at the time, to make good in the following year a relatively small under-spending which has resulted from the action or inaction of other Governments or international organisations. Normally, this would not be expected to be more than about £5 million in any one year. Again subject to circumstances, I should certainly be willing to consider with other Ministers the possibility of making good a larger shortfall over more than one succeeding year.
I believe that these arrangements will greatly improve the management of the aid programme as well as preserving for development, resources voted by Parliament. I would like publicly to thank those hon. Members who have been advocating courses of this kind, and I hope that the House will warmly welcome this change.
I turn now to private investment. I have already made clear the importance which the Government attach to the growth of private investment in developing countries. There are a great many obstacles in the way of a continuing increase in such private investment. This is one of the reasons why we decided to introduce the Investment Insurance Scheme and to offer where practicable to


conclude investment protection agreements with overseas Governments in order to provide a more suitable and acceptable framework for private investment.
Another way we could help the private investor is by providing aid for infrastructure which would be necessary for the success of investment. We have already discussed this with the C.B.I., which has told its members of it, and the first tentative request for such use of British aid funds is being discussed in the Department now.
If this concept is to grow—and it is not new—I would expect to provide aid for purposes of this kind in agreement with the Government of the country concerned and on the normal Government-to-Government basis of official development assistance. We have also decided to adopt the practice of other donor Governments of offering financial support to firms for pre-investment studies of overseas projects. There would be no cost to the Government if the study led to investment, but there would be a payment of up to half the cost of the study if no investment were made. We are now preparing a detailed scheme, and on this and other matters we shall have further talks with the C.B.I, before the final schemes are announced.
I turn now to the Commonwealth Development Corporation. Many proposals in the White Paper covered detailed recommendations of the Select Committee on the subject of private investment. We obviously have been thinking on parallel lines, because we had made considerable progress with our work in the Department while the Select Committee was making progress with its work. Other proposals in the White Paper on private investment cover some of the recommendations which the Committee made on the C.D.C.
All of us—there is no difference of opinion in the House—agree about the immense importance of the Corporation's work. It has an unrivalled fund of experience of work and working conditions in many tropical countries in the developing world and, above all, in the Commonwealth, and its report for 1970, published last month, shows a general increase in new business and overall investments to record levels, I am glad to say, and a valuable spread of business over many

countries. As the official aid programme continues to grow, I intend to make available to the Corporation increasing resources and hope to be able to provide it with firm figures for several years ahead in order to make possible long-term preparation and planning necessary for sound projects.
The White Paper saw a further possible rôle for the Corporation which my Department is now discussing with it. Many of the Corporation's investments are already undertaken in partnership with other enterprises, both British and local, but I believe that it has a special rôle in making both expertise and funds available in partnership with British firms with comparatively little experience of the possibilities and problems of business enterprise in developing countries. We hope by this means and by the active cooperation between them and the Corporation to encourage fresh investment overseas by British firms.
I shall now try to put what we are aiming together to do in the broadest possible context. The objective of the official aid programme and private investment taken together——

Mr. J. D. Dormand: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I left my interruption so late because when he mentioned me I thought he might be dealing with the question of world population. I want briefly to put two points to him because I understand that he is now summing up all the matters with which he has been dealing. As he says, he and I debated this important matter on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I asked him two questions then that he has not dealt with today, although they are relevant to the date. Speaking about the Population Institute, he said that he would be prepared to continue discussion with those concerned who might be interested in the Institute making its home in this country. Has he made progress with that?
Second, as the right hon. Gentleman has today announced an increase in the allocation in several directions of the Government's programme, is he now prepared to say that the £1 million to be expended on solving population problems will also be increased?

Mr. Wood: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised these questions. As


he reminded the House, we had a debate about this earlier this year. With the leave of the House, I should like to have the opportunity at the end of the debate of replying to certain points which are raised during the debate.
I will answer now the two questions the hon. Gentleman asked me. First, the discussions about the Institute and where it should be are continuing. Second, the amount of our future aid to population activities will be announced in due course. As I pointed out in the previous debate, it has been gradually climbing, and I hope that it will continue to be so.
The objective of our official aid programme and private investment, taken together, is to quicken the economic tempo in the developing countries and enable them to escape from their present grinding poverty and, by their own efforts, provide a better standard of living for all who live there. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that the problems are enormous and are made no easier by the rapid increase in population and by increasing numbers of young men and women wanting employment, both in rural and in urban areas.
The justification for our aid programme and the motives for which we give it support may vary from one to other of us. Some may consider it a moral duty; or, as a major trading nation, we may widely judge that an increase in world trading activity, brought about by development aid, is in our own national interests.
I find neither motive more respectable than the other, and I find that both these motives, and perhaps others, are interwoven in my own support for a substantial aid programme. I hope that this support is, and will continue to be, broadly shared by hon. Members who will continue to help me in discharging the final recommendation of the Select Committee, which was
To make the aid programme more familiar to the public at large in a form which they can readily understand.

8.24 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark) rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): If the right hon. Lady has the leave of the House.

Mrs. Hart: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is one of those days when, on a subject on which most hon. Members get too few opportunities to speak, it is necessary for us to ask for the leave of the House to speak more than once.
Reverting to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand), there are a number of us who are extremely interested to know what the next contribution will be to the population programme. As I announced the Labour Government's contribution of £1 million last summer, I am eager to hear that this amount is to be increased when the next contribution is made.
I was closely involved in the discussions concerning the Population Institute, as many people know. It will be extremely exciting if the result of all this is that Britain is able to make this part of our contribution towards population research.
This debate is necessarily a short one because of the debate which has preceded it. I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the question of the ceiling and the under-spending and his final arrangements with the Treasury, which should help a great deal in the perennial problem which arises between December and the end of March.
As to the rest of what the right hon. Gentleman said, I know that normally the pattern of debates on overseas aid has been that both sides have been in very general agreement; there has rarely been any sharp conflict. On this occasion I believe that a sharpening difference of approach between the parties on the fundamental question of the relative emphasis to be given to official Government aid, on the one hand, and to private investment, on the other, will become increasingly apparent.
I can define the precise moment of time when this difference of approach can be first identified. It was on the occasion when the two party manifestos were issued a year ago this month. The Conservative Party manifesto was absolutely frank about it. It emphasised the rôle of private investment. It gave no undertaking that there would be a commitment to the official aid target which the United Nations was asking from donor nations. On the other


hand, our manifesto accepted the official aid target and gave much greater emphasis to the official development assistance programme.
We are glad that the Government are nevertheless maintaining the increases in the official aid programme and have extended the increases that the Labour Government announced a further year ahead. It is obvious from all that the right hon. Gentleman has said, as well as from the White Paper on British Private Investment in Developing Countries which he has presented, and from what he has said about the C.D.C.—he is blunt and frank about it—that he clearly sees the rôle of private investment in development as one of much greater importance than we on this side of the House would give it.
I will devote most of my speech to this point, because it is clearly the fundamental one which will arise over the course of the next two or three years. It arises sharply on the White Paper on British Private Investment. Before I make my criticisms of this I will make one or two comments on the White Paper proposals in general.
Most countries have introduced the kind of insurance scheme proposed in the White Paper, and it is certainly appropriate that Britain, too, should do so. However, the insurance scheme is no substitute for the kind of bilateral agreement that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. The country which has done most in this respect is Germany. It has been very successful in establishing agreements which cover its own private investment arrangements. Nor is the insurance scheme a substitute for firms acting wisely and entering into agreements with those developing countries which are anxious to attract private investment. It is for the decision of the developing country itself as to the degree of enthusiasm it wishes to express for the attraction of private investment.
It is open to firms to enter into agreements on such matters as joint ownership. Travelling a little, as I did at O.D.M., I was surprised how very ready the intelligent industrialist who had experience in developing countries and who was investing there was to enter into 49 per cent. ownership of joint projects and how strange a thought this seems to many investors in Britain who do not have

experience in the developing world. There is that kind of arrangement. There are joint management arrangements and repatriation arrangements. There are general code of practice understandings. If a firm enters into such arrangements, it is able to make a contribution in terms of managerial and technical skills in an atmosphere of co-operation. This is much more of a guarantee for it than is even the private insurance scheme.
I come now to my criticisms. Paragraph 17 of the White Paper says that official aid is to be used for
financial support for pre-investment studies"—
as the right hon. Gentleman said, in cases where the enterprise does not proceed. This means that some element of the official aid programme is to pay some of the costs of private profit-making enterprises in the developing world. I cannot regard that as something which we can welcome. It is not right that a private investor, when he moves into a developing country, knowing that over the years he will take far more out. of it in profit than he puts into it in capital, should expect the British taxpayer, through the official aid programme, to subsidise that part of his investigations which leads to the possibility of his investment.
Paragraph 18 on aid from the official programme to cover infrastructure on a Government-to-Government basis associated with the private investment may not be new. Indeed, the White Paper indicates that it is not new. When I was at the Ministry—I do not know whether this was the experience of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice)—I was never asked to approve project expenditure of this kind. Although it may not be new, it must be rare. I regard this as a most dangerous suggestion from the point of view of the developing countries, for this reason. A developing country plans its process of development on the basis of a plan into which there may come an extra element of private investment. It does not include private investment in making its development plan. It cannot do so, because it never knows when it is coming, in what part of the country it will happen, or what resources will be developed or exploited by private enterprise.
The U.N.C.T.A.D. Report of the second meeting at New Delhi and the reports of the international discussions between representatives of the developing countries say over and over again that private investment cannot be part of the development plan because it is unpredictable and the time scale makes it too difficult for the countries to incorporate it in the plan. Therefore, there is what amounts to a slight or greater degree of distortion of a country's development programme because the money it had relied on in preparing its programme, the project aid which it knew three or four years in advance it would get from Britain, is suddenly to be diverted in order to assist the infrastructure which private enterprise needs. I regard this as a danger to a developing country in that it may distort its development plan and it means devoting a new and larger element in a limited aid budget to subsidising, in effect, private investment. A new priority is entering into the allocation of the aid programme as between the kind of project aid that it is normally used for.
I wish to say a few words on why official aid is more important and why it is wrong to move the emphasis so much towards private investment. Why was the Pearson proposal in the United Nations target of ·7 per cent. of official aid more important than the 1 per cent. overall target which included private investment? Many of us made a great mistake in believing that the 1 per cent. overall target was the one on which we should concentrate. We should have said that the official development aid target was infinitely more important, first, because, as I mentioned, private investment is unpredictable and cannot be taken into account in formulating the development plans of a developing country and, secondly, because it can include many non-productive activities.
The Minister has not mentioned that last year's figure for British overall aid, including private investment, touched 1 per cent., not because private investment had been carrying out any more productive activities in developing countries, but because the Bank of England had underestimated disinvestment which was purely commercial in character and did not have a single productive element in it. That

was why private investment rose to such a height. Many elements in private investment may count in the private investment figures but are not productive and therefore do not make any contribution to employment, a higher standard of living, and the removal of poverty in the developing world.
Thirdly, the private investor cannot finance infrastructure. This is why we encourage private investment. The Minister says, "We will build the roads for you". This is not what private investment ever could choose to do. How could it? I quote from an article that appeared this month in the new business journal "Vision":
The foreign investor is not often the ruthless exploiter which he is sometimes represented as. But still less often is he a charitable institution … he goes there for the sake of profits, not of humanity.
That being so, he does not finance the schools, hospitals, roads, power supplies, health services and administration which are the main needs of the developing country in trying to break out of its poverty.
Fourthly, private investment demands markets for what it produces and this necessarily means that it does not go to the poorest countries. I quote here from the Uganda representative at the U.N.C.T.A.D. conference in New Delhi. A similar point had been made a little earlier by another very small developing country. It had done all the right things, it was prepared to enter into agreements with other countries to attract private investment, it was prepared to be constructive in its approach, to give guarantees, "Yet" said the Ugandan delegate:
… we do not succeed in attracting private investors. Why don't we succeed? Because we cannot offer the markets. We are too small a country to be interesting to the private investor.
The poorest countries are the least likely to benefit from the right hon. Gentleman's new emphasis on private investment; yet they are the countries which most need help for development.
Again, on the point of infrastructure, a country can devote a massive proportion of its available capital to roads, transport and so on. Afghanistan, one of the very poorest developing countries, with no prospect of attracting private investment—there is no market there and


no way of getting stuff out of the country easily—a year or two ago devoted 44 per cent. of its gross development expenditure to transport and road construction. Here again, only official aid can help.
The figures of private investment that are shown by the Development Assistance Committee, the figures that go to the United Nations and measure the overall flow of resources from rich to poor countries are not net of private reverse flows; that is to say, the flows back from the developing country to the rich country. There have been many years in which the figures have shown that the profits flowing back to rich countries were greater than the capital investment that had flowed into the developing countries. Indeed, this is the general pattern. It is nobody's fault. This is what the private investor is there for—to make his profits and bring them back. In giving this new emphasis to private investors, let us not believe that we are doing anything other than giving a lesser priority for official aid and therefore a lesser priority to the real development needs of the poorer countries.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, since this allows me to make a point that I cannot otherwise make because, having spoken on Pakistan, I am apparently debarred from speaking about aid. Appendix V on page 305 of the evidence given to the Select Committee well illustrates the point which my right hon. Friend has been making about private investment. Any interested hon. Members can see from that what has been the effect of private investment in the developing world. It is completely sporadic as between one year and another, it is completely sporadic as between one kind of country and another, and this reinforces my right hon. Friend's point that there is no order of priority according to development needs. It is entirely a question of where private investors think there is profit to be made. It is, therefore, a completely unreliable tool for the ends which we thought the Ministry was designed to ensure, namely, real development in the poorest countries in the world.

Mrs. Hart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for underlining my point so effec-

tively. I must be careful not to imply, in speaking of giving a wrong new emphasis to private investment, that the Government are going back on their existing commitments to official aid. Of course they are not. I have already said that they are increasing those commitments, so it is not about that that I am complaining. I am complaining about their philosophy and the distortions of the official aid programme by the use of part of that programme to back up private investment, which I suggest is of much lesser value to the developing world.
If we had had a little longer, I had hoped to talk a little about trade. In our aid debates we often neglect the fact that the other half, probably the more important half, of the aid equation is trade, what is to happen to the primary products and so on. I welcome the Minister's assurance that progress is being made on untying, and the agreement reached last autumn on generalised preference. I hope that U.N.C.T.A.D. will move very rapidly towards the next stage of agreement on the many points put up to it by the developing world on trading questions.
I had hoped to say something about population, but that must go, and about education, but that, too, must go.
I have one final comment about which countries should stand highest in our aid allocations. One of the most difficult tasks of any Minister in this direction is to see where he wants to bring his own attitude to bear on the aid framework and the allocations. The impact that anyone can make in any one year is marginal, because there is a continuing programme and existing commitments. The emphasis one gives within the allocations, however, is a measure of the Minister's own attitude.
Added to that is the question of which projects within the countries concerned merit the greatest support. I am now much clearer in my own mind than I was when I was at the Ministry about what the criteria for allocation should ideally be. I am quite clear that one of the criteria which I reject is that of economic performance measured by rates of growth. It has become increasingly clear to me that the poorest countries, those in greatest need, are precisely those which are at too early a stage of development


to be successful in achieving high rates of economic growth, because they need aid to get their infrastructure, to get their administration, in order to begin to grow. Therefore, I now reject the suggestion, which has been made on behalf of the British Government at international conferences, that a country which has shown its ability to use aid and shown its performance in growth has a moral right to aid.
Our first priority should be the poorest countries, a priority modified a little by their capacity to absorb aid. Obviously, that is a necessary pre-condition.
Further, if I must choose between the poorest countries, I choose those which are deliberately directing their policies towards helping the masses of the people rather than the few, to ending elitism, ending the latifundia, all those manifestations of privilege which very often we, the old imperialists, handed on to them.
As to the projects within those countries, I believe that the general tenor of that philosophy leads directly to concentrating upon rural development, because here is where we can do something to prevent increasing unemployment as well as achieving increasing production, and upon education.
These are the questions we should debate in an overseas aid debate. We must not be frightened of breaking a little the conventions of bilateral agreements between both sides of the House on these matters. I am not sure that it would not be healthy for public enthusiasm for aid if we had some rather sharp disagreements such as I have expressed tonight.

An Hon. Member: You have done your best.

Mrs. Hart: I do not say I have not done my best. I feel these things strongly. I believe that the programme is now beginning to take a wrong direction. I am bound to say these things and cannot be expected to approve and say "Well done" when I believe philosophically that this is wrong.
I end by mentioning something which we can all agree about, but on which perhaps we need to be cautious. We must remember that development is not to be calculated in annual statistics of growth,

but in terms of lifting the poverty levels of people. I believe that if the right hon. Gentleman keeps that in the forefront of his mind he will get his priorities right, and he may get his policies right.

8.46 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine: It is a sad reflection on human affairs that people's interest and compassion in the plight of others is often only fully aroused when some appalling tragedy, such as that which is taking place in Bengal, hits the headlines. Rightly, horror is expressed at the immensity of the suffering, and there are angry reactions to the inadequacy and slowness of relief. But what is happening in Bengal stems from conditions of deprivation and poverty which have existed for decades and which have long demanded outside sympathy, understanding and practical help.
Those hon. Members, including myself, who visited the Indian sub-continent some 18 months ago to study the British aid programme there came back convinced that East Pakistan was heading for disaster anyway unless urgent action was taken by the aid consortium to get development under way and aid more effectively co-ordinated, and we said so at the time. What is happening in Bengal, therefore, is a frightful warning to the world community of what could happen elsewhere if the long-term problems of economic development and population control are not handled with more sense of urgency by both donor and recipient Governments. It also underlines more eloquently than I can say the need to sustain and improve our own long-term aid programme.
It is with this in mind that I turn, as the Chairman of the Select Committee on Overseas Aid, to say a few words about our report and about the Command Paper in which my right hon. Friend makes his observations on our recommendations. I should like first to pay a personal tribute to my colleagues on the Select Committee, to the Clerks and specialist advisers who served us, and especially to my predecessor as Chairman, Miss Peggy Herbison, whose dedication to her task was an inspiration to us all. We were a very happy team. When we came together over two years ago we represented many different points of view


but shared a profound belief in the contribution that aid, properly administered and co-ordinated, could make to development, and as our investigations proceeded that belief became strengthened.
I wish also to thank my right hon. Friend for his kind remarks about the Select Committee and its work and to express my satisfaction that he has either implemented or is in process of implementing a good many of our recommendations. In particular, I am pleased with the prompt response he made to those of our recommendations which were designed to encourage a greater flow of private investment to those developing countries where it is welcome. I am convinced that the Government's decision to introduce a scheme for insuring new investors against non-commercial risks and to conclude, wherever possible, bilateral treaties with developing countries will bolster confidence and lead to an increased flow of private investment and all the benefits it can bring. The advantage of investment treaties of course, is that they protect existing as well as new investment and they also involve the developing country itself.
Those who have read the report will have noted that we did not spend much time in making what might be described as the moral case for aid. It surely goes without saying that the appalling poverty and deprivation suffered by millions of our fellow human beings is an affront to human dignity and is a challenge to the conscience of us all.
What our Report did say was that we all lived in one world, that it was in the interests of all that the physical and, even more important, the human resources of the poorer two-thirds should be developed as rapidly as possible, and that in this high endeavour our neighbourly duty and self-interest combine. I quote a few words from the Report:
We can neither afford to waste the potential contribution of knowledge and ideas which the undeveloped countries can eventually make, nor neglect the opportunities which their growing markets can provide.
In short, we saw aid as investment, not as charity, as an instrument for expanding wealth and wellbeing in the world in a fair and sensible way, not as a palliative. In this sense perhaps the word "aid" is misleading. After all, the developing countries have been finding

more than 80 per cent. of their investment requirements out of their own export earnings and savings. Aid has been only marginal—crucial but only marginal. What we are talking about tonight, I hope, is partnership in development.
The Select Committee was concerned not only with the reasons for Britain having an aid programme, but with the way in which British aid was organised and used. Obviously, so great are the demands upon our resources at home and so much needs to be done in the developing countries overseas that it is imperative to ensure that our aid is effectively administered and applied at every stage.
The General Election of last year had one unforeseen result for the Select Committee's work. Had it not come when it did, then, armed with the knowledge we had acquired in our evidence-taking sessions, we should have asked the then Minister, the right hon. Lady, to give evidence before we reported. In the event, the change of Government not only delayed reappointment of the Select Committee, but our new terms of reference precluded us from taking fresh evidence. It also led to the merger of the Ministry of Overseas Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Thus, although some of us were concerned that this step might weaken aid administration, we were prevented effectively from cross-examining my right hon. Friend on the subject.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Report should express strong reservations on the new arrangements and should stress that if the quality and quantity of British aid and its high reputation in recipient countries were not to suffer, it would be essential to keep the former Ministry's organisation intact within the new enlarged Department. In our view, it would be incredibly short-sighted to disperse so unique a concentration of development expertise.
On this crucial point my right hon. Friend makes no observations in his Command Paper, and I know that he will forgive me if I now ask him two questions which the Select Committee might have wished to put to him had we been empowered to ask him to appear before us. First, is it intended to keep the Overseas Development Administration intact, or are there any plans for hiving


off part of it to other Departments or bodies; for example, the British Council?
Secondly, now that the O.D.A. is part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will it be able to prevent diversion of aid funds to serve political rather than purely developmental ends? I ask this question because, in reply to our recommendation that the cost of assistance given for purely political reasons should not be included in the cost of official development aid, we got the somewhat extraordinary answer, in paragraph 7 of the Command Paper, that it is not possible to distinguish between the two. Why not?
Our point in the Report was that it was quite wrong to use aid for short-term political ends, however justifiable these might be, regardless of economic priorities. Where this happens, there is a danger that funds may be denied to another country whose developmental need is greater. Clearly, those questions are pertinent if we are to maintain the present high standards of aid management, and if our aid is to be used, as the Select Committee thought it should be, for developmental as opposed to political, purposes. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will be able to answer them.
I now turn to my right hon. Friend's observations set out in the Command Paper. In answer to the Select Committee's suggestion that aid statistics should be presented in a form which shows the true cost of aid, my right hon. Friend says that he is satisfied with what is being done at present. I fear that on this my right hon. Friend is running against the tide of Parliamentary opinion. The Estimates Committee in 1968 took exactly the same view as we did. It is a fact that the man in the street—who in the last analysis provides the money for the programme—believes that the aid programme costs more than it actually does. He does not read the small print in the statistics. If, therefore, we are to carry public opinion with us, as we must, it is essential that the Minister looks at this again.
As regards the level of British aid, I note my right hon. Friend's statement that
the Government have undertaken to do their best to reach the 1 per cent. target for total

net financial flows to developing countries by 1975",
and their refusal to be drawn into any specific commitment in regard to the percentage of official aid. I understand that. It is better not to promise more than one can faithfully perform. I welcome very much my right hon. Friend's announcement tonight of the improvements in the aid programme, but I hope that he does not overlook the fact that the Pearson targets were minimal.
By 1975 our total net financial flows may well exceed 1 per cent. g.n.p., while the level for official aid remains below 0·7 per cent. The point that I want to make—and here is where I agree with the right hon. Lady—is that the two elements are not the same—they have different, though complementary purposes—and official aid should not be limited merely because private flows exceed 0·3 per cent. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend knows, a pre-condition of increased private investment is an adequate flow of official aid to provide the necessary infrastructure.
This is not in any way to minimise the rôle of private investment, and here I part company from the right hon. Lady. The Select Committee saw such investment as making a unique contribution to developing countries, especially in the more modern form of joint ventures. After all, it is accompanied by managerial and technical skills, which the developing countries often lack and cannot acquire in any other way. It provides the training and employment opportunities which they need. It introduces new ideas and new processes, develops new markets, contributes to local tax revenues, and encourages the growth of indigenous business and industry. It is no wonder that the Pearson Report laid so much emphasis upon the contribution that such enterprise can make to real growth in the developing world, and it is good to see the Government ready and eager to encourage more investment of this kind.
As to priorities, the Select Committee attached the highest importance to rural development. The population explosion in many developing countries is now intensifying rural and urban unemployment, with all its attendant poverty, social distress and malnutrition. In India alone at least 10 million people are officially out of work, while estimates made by the


Inter-American Development Bank suggest that 30 per cent. of the total labour force of Latin America may be unemployed or under-employed. It is hardly necessary for us to dwell upon the social and political consequences of allowing this terrifying situation to drift.
Our Report showed that urban industrialisation does not provide a quick or easy answer, and that the way ahead lies through improvement in agriculture and the development of the rural areas, where, after all, the majority of the people in the developing countries still live. To this end, we made a number of recommendations. I am puzzled by my right hon. Friend's response to some of them. For example, we recommended that aid to economically sound rural development projects should not be inhibited on account of local costs. Does my right hon. Friend's answer in the Command Paper mean that a valuable project may have to be rejected where the developing country concerned cannot afford the local costs involved? If it does, I suggest that some drastic revision of policy seems to be required.
Then again, in response to our suggestion that intermediate technology should be energetically applied to rural development programmes financed by British aid, all we are told is that the O.D.A. is supporting research into the theoretical and practical possibilities and so far such studies have cost £100,000. There appears to be little sense of urgency here: nor are we told what results have flowed from such expenditure.
This seems a poor response to the carefully reasoned argument in the Report that advanced technology is not the answer yet to the problems of any developing countries and that what is needed is not sophisticated equipment but tools and techniques of a kind which are within the reach and understanding of the people whom we are trying to help. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to expand on what he has said in the Command Paper.
Nor am I happy about the response to our suggestions about improving the opportunities for British consultants to take a hand in overseas development, especially as there is ample evidence of the very high value of such consultancies not only to the developing countries but to British business interests.
My right hon. Friend infers that present arrangements on this score are satisfactory. That is not what the Select Committee was told by the British Consultants Bureau. We feel that the Government should take a more positive line. In response to our suggestion that the fund available to the Department of Trade and Industry for financing consultancies should be increased., my right hon. Friend said in the Command Paper that the fund is being operated for an experimental period but he does not say whether it is serving a useful purpose, or how long the experimental period will be, or whether the matter will be reviewed. I hope he will take the matter up with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and ask him, if necessary, to inject a little more dynamism into the system.
That brings me to one of the great success stories of the British aid effort, the Commonwealth Development Corporation. Here there is certainly no lack of dynamism. The Select Committee was of the opinion that this organisation makes an invaluable, indeed unique, contribution to the economic growth of developing countries, especially in the field of rural development, and we were anxious to see that contribution increased and extended to more countries. Moreover, here is a perfect example of aid conferring mutual benefits since the CDC. can not only point to a wide variety of successful ventures round the world but it pays its way and promotes substantial exports from Britain.
Precisely because of this I am disappointed at my right hon. Friend's response to our recommendation that the C.D.C. should be given firm commitments at least three years ahead regarding the amount of money it will get from the Treasury. My right hon. Friend says that discussion on this is now taking place, but, with respect, this battle has been going on for a long time and it is not further discussion that is needed but decision. Are we to interpret what my right hon. Friend has said tonight as meaning that a decision has been taken or that one is imminent?
Development, of course, is not just a matter of money. It involved finding the right people to work overseas, and keeping them. If our aid effort is to be sustained, British experts in the field must


feel that their interests are not forgotten. This is why the Select Committee specifically recommended that recipient Governments should be asked, as a condition of our supplying experts, to appoint British officers in their Government departments to be responsible for the welfare and conditions of service of our expatriate British staff in the field.
I welcome the excellent example set by the Zambian Government, which recently appointed two British officers to their Ministry of Establishments. I hope that everything will be done to encourage other Governments to follow suit. It is not good enough to leave our people's interests solely to the good offices of our diplomatic staffs, especially in countries where there are large numbers in the field.
Similarly, I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider carefully our recommendation that when Her Majesty's Government assume responsibility for the payment of expatriate officers' pensions, no pensioner shall be worse off. I recognise the difficulties, but it should not be beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme which is fair to all concerned.
Finally, I come to the Select Committee's last recommendation; namely, that special consideration should be given to presenting the aid programme to the public at large in a form they can more readily understand. My right hon. Friend's answer in the Command Paper is that it is best for his Department to concentrate on those groups and individuals who are, in turn, conducting extensive publicity and educational activity in this sphere. With respect, I suggest that that is short-sighted; it helps only the converted.
Tonight my right hon. Friend has been a little more forthcoming. Does he agree that the time is now ripe for a campaign to excite the imagination of ordinary people to make them aware of the purpose of the aid programme and of what is really at stake, not simply for this generation but for the future in a world whose population will double within 30 years?
I venture to make a few suggestions. Why not commission a really good film of documentary award-winning standard? Why not arrange exhibitions in city

centres? Why not organise a professional market study of the communications problem with the mass media? It is not enough to publish facts and figures; they must be explained so that widely differing audiences can grasp what the challenge and adventure of development is all about.
I said at the outset that we all live in one world. Clearly, what is at stake here is whether in the long run a world in which the majority live in conditions of wretchedness will be worth living in for the rest of us, and whether in these circumstances our civilisation can survive. If we really believe in the need for action—and I hope that the Select Committee's Report makes it clear that some of us do—then it is surely our duty to inform and enthuse as many people as possible, and to do so while there is still time.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) because it enables me, as a member of the Committee ever since it was first set up under the previous Government, to underline the points he has made and, in particular, to thank him, not only for his chairmanship in the last session which we had but because, as he rightly said, as a Committee we were able to do a considerable amount of constructive work across the barriers of the two sides of the Committee, and the hon. Gentleman, in his rôle as vice-chairman, perhaps did even more to that end than he did as Chairman.
I underline all that he said about the work which was carried on in the Committee, thanks to the Clerks, and especially to the number of witnesses and the number of organisations that presented ream upon ream of interesting and very factual documentation and who spent hours being cross-questioned by the Committee.
I suppose it is usual, after having a hard slog like that, that we are inclined to know each other a little better. But we came out of the Committee convinced that we had only just started the job, and we very much regretted that, owing to the reorganisation of the programme of the House, it was not possible for


the Select Committee to be reconstituted in a similar form in order to carry forward some of the ideas which emerged and which were published in the report.
I again underline some of the words of the hon. Gentleman, which arose also from the right hon. Gentleman the Minister's opening comments, that the Committee were very concerned about the change from the old Ministry of Overseas Development to Overseas Development Administration under the Foreign Office. However, Governmental changes have taken place, and many of us will be watching with great interest to see the final result. I hope that when the right hon. Gentleman replies to the points made about how much of the expertise, organisation and administration of the previous Ministry is to be retained, he will remember that when we on this side of the House win the next General Election, I shall certainly be one of those strongly pressing to revert to the idea of a self-contained Ministry having the responsibility within its own right on this extremely important part of governmental responsibility.
I also take up the point of the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks about emergency aid, which although not within the remit of the Committee is certainly within the remit of this debate, and I refer to the question which has arisen under the United Nations and the report which will be given by U Thant in July on the whole question of world stockpiling.
On behalf of the British delegation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union at Caracas at Easter, I had the privilege of presenting a document and drafting a resolution, which was carried unanimously and which will now go to the world conference in September in Paris. I am pretty certain that there it will receive the unanimous support that it did in Venezuela. What it demands is the use of our computerised organisation and administrative skill in order to alert nations that within 24 hours emergency aid can be on its way. Not physical stockpiles—because for a number of reasons this is a wasteful way of ensuring a speedy use of men, materials, medical equipment and supplies—but it is quite possible to pledge, in the same way that United Nations specialised agencies now

pledge that certain financial resources shall be available for the I.L.O., F.A.O., and World Health Organisation every year at their pledging conference, that also this could be done with material, men, supplies and, most important, logistics, under the auspices and control of the United Nations.
As a result of the statement made today in the previous debate and of the pressures that have come from the House as a result of this last tragic disaster in Pakistan, I am hopeful that there will be an added impetus to the organisation to centralise control at the United Nations for the speedy ability to deal with the kind of thing that has happened in the last few months in Pakistan.
I speak with some feeling about Pakistan, and on this subject I speak with a little experience. I lived there for two years. I served for three years as a technical assistance expert under the United Nations programme, and I am aware of some of the real problems, with which we had some difficulty in the Select Committee in translating them into words of documentation. Human problems are sometimes extremely difficult to express in the kind of language or jargon which we seem to have to use in the documents which we present to the public. In this connection, I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman's closing observations about the need to give a better public interpretation and the use of mass media of the realities of the situation.
I wish to draw attention to one or two of the awkward questions with which the Select Committee dealt, and I take, first, the whole question of land tenure. The Committee spent some time on this issue, which is one of the hottest chestnuts in the whole field of overseas aid and development. It is basic to a country's economy, especially when that country has largely an agrarian and subsistence economy, and, if it is not tackled, a lot of the other aid one can give is abortive and simply cannot achieve the results for which one hopes.
I welcome the Government's statement on this section of our Report to the effect that they will look further at the possibility of British expertise being used to help tackle the problem of land tenure, which is primarily a political problem, but I hope also that the Minister will


look into the fund of experience which we have. In this connection, I refer to our experience in India at the beginning of the century when, under the British Government of that day, there were many development schemes under way. Development schemes are a popular form of multilateral aid because they are imaginative, one can see the areas of land involved, one can see the number of people involved, one can see hydroelectric schemes, water and irrigation schemes, and so on, all in one neat package.
Under the development scheme at Lyallpur at the beginning of the century, one was able to see in progress developments of the kind which we have been trying to set on foot in recent years under our more modern development programmes. A whole area of land was reclaimed and resettled. Within two generations, however, in those days, the whole thing became entirely absorbed into the generality of poverty because the system of land tenure and inheritance in India was such that the original plots of land, which were viable agricultural units, became fragmented into units too small to be satisfactorily worked.
The whole question of land tenure and land consolidation into workable units, tough as it is, and overlaid as it is with political considerations, must be looked at far more closely, and the Ministry must accept some of the evidence which the Select Committee had before it, so that we may play a far more active part in seeking to solve the problems which still confront us in the developing countries of the world.
I was particularly interested in the Select Committee—and also because this was my job in Asia—in the whole business of rural development by means of auto-activity. There are a number of names for schemes of this kind, the most popular being co-operative systems, cooperative agricultural societies, co-operative credit and thrift societies, co-operative irrigation societies, and so on. In other cases, they were known as village A.I.D. schemes or extension schemes. Basically, however, whatever the name, it always comes down to the same thing: one is trying in a local area to get the people themselves to organise themselves

and lift themselves out of their own poverty.
Whatever good will we may generate in other quarters of the world, we still come back to that basic principle, that only the people themselves can do the job for themselves. What we are trying to do, therefore, is to move away from the paternalistic approach of previous generations to an approach by which the people in developing countries accept their responsibility and we for our part accept a measure of responsibility to give a fraternal helping hand in the job which they are doing.
In this connection, I very much regret that, in spite of the evidence which we took in the Select Committee, which showed that there has been considerable development in this area and considerable research, when I asked the Minister the other day to establish a central coordinating apex research institute, so to speak, for the amount of research, documentation, experience and expertise which is now available in these matters, he rejected that suggestion and said that he was certain that enough was already being done.
A tremendous amount has been done and is being done, but the trouble is that a good deal of it is being duplicated, and a good deal is being done in different ways in different parts of the world. We need some centralised co-ordination so that the results can be used in the most effective way. I am speaking here not so much of research in terms of general study to find out more but of applied research so that, as a result of information received about what is going on throughout the world in agrarian and rural development, there can be a follow-through enabling one effectively to gear aid programmes to take practical advantage of the findings of the research.
Vital to all aid programmes is the whole question of education. One of the things which emerged in the Select Committee, especially when looking at the 80 per cent. rural areas as opposed to the 20 per cent. industrial areas and modern towns was that education did not mean simply seeing how many people could get through a schools system finishing at university. In large areas it is a question of adult education, practical education, a question of what can be done with people who have very little literacy to


begin with and have to be shown how to organise their social and economic life to overcome their difficulties.
The hon. Member for Essex, South-East quite rightly drew attention to the fact that one of the great problems was that as a result of the understandable desire of the developing countries to have the best possible university standards, graduate after graduate was being turned out into an environment where there was not the type of job available for them. As a result, there is not only unemployment in the villages; there is a total of 10 million unemployed in India, including many highly educated graduates, because the economic system is not yet organised in such a way as to be able to absorb them in the type of jobs capable of using the knowledge that they have acquired.
I would like to refer to the excellent papers which the Select Committee received from the Industrial Co-operative Training Centre at Loughborough and the International Co-operative Alliance and to the voluntary work that has been going on throughout the world under the leadership of these organisations. Since Creech Jones was Colonial Secretary there has been continual support for this kind of practical educational training at Loughborough. I am glad to say that this Government have continued with that.
I should like to pay tribute to the way in which practical work is going on to help overseas students in agricultural cooperatives. It is not only right that they get to know how a co-operative farm should be administered but it is right too that students under the overseas aid programme should undergo a six-month period of practical experience.
I emphasise the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) about the Minister's remarks on investment and trade. These can only be complementary to our job, they cannot be a substitute for it. I cannot emphasise too strongly the evidence that we received on this subject in the Select Committee.
We were dissatisfied with the progress being made by U.N.C.T.A.D. There should be a great extension of its work and more support for it. We were disappointed with the New Delhi conference. We felt it should have gone further. We had quite a lot of evidence

on this in Committee and are pressing the Government to be more forthcoming in giving greater power and support to this body.
The question of trade ties up with another question before the House—whether Great Britain is to enter the Common Market. I would be out of order if I were to go into that now, but our trade with the developing countries and the Commonwealth is still much greater than it is with Europe and it would be a tragedy if because of the change of circumstances in this part of the world, there was a diminution in our trade with the developing countries. It would be a greater tragedy if the pattern of trade in the developing countries became such that those countries were merely the drawers of water and hewers of wood—the providers of the primary products. While we in the West are struggling to get two cars to a family these people are struggling to get two bowls of rice a day.
On the population problem I pay tribute to what has been done in India wih the propaganda campaign. One cannot move anywhere without seeing that famous advertisement of a wife and two children and saying in Hindi "Children by choice and not by chance". Millions of rupees must have been spent on this campaign, and all credit to them for doing so. I hope that other countries seek to help in this way.
The problem of population is not simply one of many births but because we have been so successful medically that we have been keeping people alive longer. The most graphic illustration which I have seen of the population explosion was one by Professor Boeke, of Leiden University, an authority on socio-economics in Asia. This demonstrates the population increase over 2,000 years since the birth of Christ. If that increase were measured by distance in this Chamber, roughly from the Bar of the House to Mr. Speaker's Chair, then the population has been so rising over that period that by the time the line of growth reached Mr. Speaker's Chair it would have risen two inches; and the rise in the last 30 years would bring the line almost to the top of the Press Gallery. That is a graph of the population explosion we are now facing and that is the problem with which we have to deal.
The Select Committee took evidence from many devoted people who have given their time, attention and energy to this problem. What we tried to bring home to the world was what poverty really means. Let me put it quickly in two ways. Tomorrow an hon. Member may be entertaining two or three friends in the Strangers' Dining Room. What that meal will cost him is what many a family of eight have to live on for a month.
The most tragic situation I had to see when I was in Asia, in Indonesia, Burma, India, and in Pakistan, was the situation where a family had to decide what to do to escape starvation. The question is not whether a child of the family should be an engineer or a doctor to earn a living. The decision is that he should be a beggar and by this profession support the family. Because of the pressure of poverty a mother will take her child and quite deliberately break both its arms and legs so that it can sit in a little trolley on four wheels and so go and beg enough to keep the rest of the family. That is poverty. That is poverty in its extreme form. And this is the problem which overseas aid is trying to overcome.
The pressure from the Churches last year was successful, and I hope that it will be doubled in the next year. The organisations which came to the Select Committee urged us to do more. I hope that they will double their presure. I hope, with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Essex, South-East, that the television and all public media will do all they can to arouse the conscience of the people. I hope the Government will give far more cash, far more resources, and far more energy to the problem.

9.28 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker: I was particularly interested in the point which the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) made about land tenure. It seems to me absolutely fundamental to what is happening in the world at the moment, and what it will be for the next 50 years, whether in Siberia or other areas.
It is of the utmost importance not merely that land should be owned in certain ways but that it should be cared for. If we are to produce the food which is

required, it is essential that we should undertake the proper care of the land. Having studied this matter in a number of lands, in this country and around the world, I think the system in north-east Africa, whereby the land belongs to the community but an individual keeps it, and it is passed on from father to son, is one of the best. If the one who keeps it goes away elsewhere, then the land reverts to the community. I think the Russians have studied land tenure in Siberia from something I read in Pravda some time ago. It is essential that we all look after the land.
I do not want to take up many minutes of the time of the House, but to make one or two points. First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on his first year in office, and particularly on the reorganisation of his Department. It is good to have a Minister responsible for overseas aid in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who is fairly free to go abroad and, in going around, finds, as I know he does more and more, that economic development aid is of growing interest and in many countries of greater importance than the political problems with which they are also faced. The establishment of the Minister within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is good, and I hope that as time goes on the move will be accepted more widely. I do not take the cynical view that aid is given only in order to further foreign policy. I believe that, whatever Government are in power in this country, aid will be part of our overseas policy.
The hon. Member for Willesden, West mentioned the population explosion over the last 25 years in particular. I think we made a mistake in the years after the war by stressing too much industrialisation as being the first priority. In retrospect, it seems that the production of food was really the primary task. Following that, of course, is the problem of education, in broad terms. My right hon. Friend mentioned technical education—the growing amount of telecommunications equipment, pumps, generators and vehicles which one finds all over the world, although there are seldom enough technically trained to keep it all working well. There is also need of administrators, without which these technical skills cannot be put to good use. But I believe that, within all this, it is


the production of food that is the basis of the wellbeing of the people of these countries.
I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend stress "management". Capital is in short supply, but good management is in even shorter supply.
I add my tribute to the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has done a wonderful job. It is continuing to fill the gap between State-owned industries and commerce, and free enterprise, and has often got operations going which would not otherwise have got going, at least not as quickly. I have always welcomed increases in the activities of the C.D.C. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) mentioned Ethiopia, which he knows so much about. I hope that before too long the Sudan, in which I have always had a particular interest, will, when circumstances allow, be brought within its scope.
A method which the C.D.C. has been increasingly using is the employment of consultants. This, again, is part of the change from the supply only of capital to include the supply of management. By employing consultants, it is very often easier to find managers through whom to train, over a shorter period, local people who can take over managerial responsibilities in due course.
I also welcome what my right hon. Friend said about what I call insurance against political risks. He called it the investment insurance scheme. A number of us on both sides of the House have been pressing for this for some time, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney), who did a great deal of work on this with the Conservative Commonwealth Council about 10 years ago. I am sorry, and he regrets, that he is unable to be here today. I have always regarded him, with his practical business experience, as knowing more about this subject than anyone else I know.
We are making progress on these lines. West Germany, Japan and the United States have, I understand, done most in this way; for a relatively small outlay it can often produce a disproportionately greater result. In 1962 the Chancellor of the day said that this was a good idea but we did not then have the resources for it. I am not sufficiently technically

qualified to know just where one such scheme runs into another, but the extension of the activities of the Export Credits Guarantee Department possibly covers some of the area to be covered by insurance against political risk.
Top priority should be given to the still dependent territories. When Arthur Creech-Jones once invited me to join a committee there were 42 dependent territories. Now there are about 18, all of which except one are very small. As they are very remote, these territories deserve speial attention. The right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), when she was Minister, gave special attention to these territories. I stress that as long as we have sole responsibility for them we should do our utmost to help them to an even greater extent.
The International Peacekeeping Association can be of great assistance to aid. This group was initiated by a number of former officers who had commanded United Nations Forces. General Rikhye played a very prominent part in the original thinking. There is to be a conference in September to consider the possibilities, mainly on the military side. It has also been suggested that for a comparatively small outlay a conference should be held to study the feasibility of using such forces in disasters, using the same personnel.
I ask the Minister to consider whether help for such a conference would not be worth while, in view of the most recent example of the disaster in East Pakistan. We should consider establishing forces having signals, engineers and medical teams available. Such personnel must be more readily available than they are at present, as the events in East Pakistan in the last few weeks have shown. There was a good response from Singapore when the cyclone hit East Pakistan a year or so ago. I see no way of organising people and having them standing by in readiness except on some military basis.
I agree that this should be a United Nations' overall responsibility, possibly based on a regional set-up. In the past, the Congo was at first a disaster area rather than a political problem. The existence of such a group which could go into a disaster area and take immediate action might help to prevent this disaster from becoming a political problem.
In view of the lateness of the hour, I shall not comment on all the remarks


made by the right hon. Lady. She and I disagree fundamentally. The Socialist outlook, which she stated in a classic form, is different from mine. I believe in the place of government and in letting others create wealth within the overall control of government.
The right hon. Lady spoke about people taking more out in profits than they put back in capital. That does not offend me. I am not talking about Coca Cola. I am talking of a place like the great Gezira scheme in the Sudan. Over 25 years free enterprise management under Government control probably took out twice as much as it put in in capital. Today, on the balance of payments, it is probably earning three or four times as much every year as it originally put in in capital. Those who live in the Sudan and run this great project would not feel that this was wicked capitalist exploitation from this country. There are a number of such projects, including mining developments. Large losses are often sustained. Profits are not always made all the time. When the right hon. Lady was Minister, she probably did not practise many of the things that she has told us about this evening.

Mrs. Hart: The hon. Gentleman and I share many interests, including an interest in the Turks and Caicos Islands, with which he and I are probably the only two hon. Members who are familiar. The hon. Gentleman must not be unfair to me. I was talking about the difference between the Government attitude towards official aid at the end of, but during, my time in office and the present Government attitude towards official aid compared with private investment. I practised what I preached when I was at the Ministry.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: It is a question of a swing of emphasis rather than the change of policy which has taken place under the present Government. I support what the Government are doing and hope that it will be successful. We should use every incentive possible to encourage people to manage businesses and developments well and to carry on with the creation of wealth for the greater happiness of all those who live in developing countries.
The Minister spoke about motivation and why we are doing these things. The slogan with which Livingstone fought the slave trade over 100 years ago was "Christianity and commerce". It was a good slogan then, and it is a good slogan now.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Reg Prentice: I begin by joining those who have congratulated the Select Committee on the work it did and particularly those hon. Members who are present who shared in it, like my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) and others. The Select Committee did a first-class job. I should like, in particular, to join in the tributes paid to Margaret Herbison, whom many of us remember as a very able and charming colleague.
Having as Minister of Overseas Development persuaded my colleagues to establish the Select Committee, I should like to claim a small fraction of the credit. I took the view, which was not the universal view of Ministers, that it would be good for the Department that the work which it was doing should be examined, and I believe that that has been borne out by the result.
I have mixed feelings about the timing of this debate. In one sense, it is appropriate that we should be discussing these broader problems immediately after debating the situation in East Pakistan and North-East India. Public opinion in Britain and in the affluent countries generally has a selective conscience in these matters. We rightly become very concerned and compassionate about a sudden crisis of this kind, but we lose touch with the situation immediately it leaves the headlines. It is a vital postscript to our earlier discussion today that we should remind ourselves that the conditions of cholera epidemic, of threatened famine and of homelessness are very close to the normal conditions of life in that part of Asia and to the conditions in other parts of the developing world, and it is essential for us to think much more of the long-term problems than we normally do.
At the same time, it is inappropriate that this debate should be taking place in only a three-hour period at the end of the day. The House should manage


every year to have at least a full day's debate on overseas aid and development. It was right to have an emergency debate on the situation in Asia, but another day should have been found for this debate. The last time that we had a debate on overseas development in Government time was when I was Minister. I spent a long time persuading the Leader of the House to provide time for it. On that occasion half the day was taken up with an emergency debate on Gibraltar. This seems to be the fate of debates on this subject. Supposing we had an emergency debate on Northern Ireland in which we discussed the conduct of our troops there, no one would think it possible to push the debate into three hours at the end of the day, following the annual debate on the Defence White Paper. Our priorities are hopelessly out of date. The other place has shown a better sense of priorities, in that it has had three debates on overseas development this year.
We go through the same ritual year by year. We spend the same number of days on the Budget and the Finance Bill and the same number of days on the Defence White Paper. Overseas Aid concerns our relationship with two-thirds of the world. We hardly ever debate it, and when we do we have to do it in a rush with inadequate time.
I should have liked to have made a number of comments on the White Paper, but I will confine myself to two general observations. My first is an attempt to bring together a number of subjects on which I should have liked to have made more detailed comments, and to make a general abservation about priorities within the aid programme and within the general framework of development.
As we look back over the large number of reports and studies of the last few years, we find that many of the assessments made have been too optimistic. For example, the important and distinguished report of Mr. Lester Pearson's Commission in many of its conclusions appeared too optimistic and in many of its recommendations appeared too modest. I still think that it was an excellent report which contained a great deal which we need to study and apply, but it took too easy a view of the progress made in the 1960s and made rather too optimistic assumptions about the progress that

could be expected during the 1970s and over the rest of the century.
At the same time, some of those who have criticised the Pearson assessment have gone too far in the other direction in suggesting that the whole of the development effort is along the wrong lines. I take a view somewhere in between. We need a considerable shift of emphasis in development, but that does not mean that everything that has happened so far has been wrong. We should be learning the lessons, and the beginning of the Second Development Decade is particularly a time to be taking stock.
In our recent experience we can claim that a number developments have been successful and others have not. On the one hand, we can look back on the 1960s as a period in which the developing world achieved on average a growth rate of 5 per cent. per annum in gross national product. This is a faster rate of growth than most of those countries have ever had before. It is a faster rate of growth than we had in Britain at a similar stage of our development, and it is a rate of growth that is mostly due to the efforts of the developing countries.
All the aid programmes in the world plus all the private investment in the world amounted to only about 15 per cent. of the new capital generation in the developing world during the 1960s; 85 per cent. came from the savings and sacrifices of the developing countries. This is a success story. But we have to set against that the fact that the crude measurement of economic growth is only one of the indices, not necessarily the most important one, for judging the situation in these countries. At the same time we have seen an appalling growth of unemployment and under-employment, which is likely to become more severe in the years ahead. We have seen in many countries in the developing world a greater division between those who are relatively well off and the bulk of the population, and the enormous growth of shanty-town slums, in many of which 50, 60 or 70 per cent. of the people are unemployed. We have seen the explosive growth of population to which other hon. Members have referred.
It is vital that we draw the correct lessons from this situation. We should not draw from it any message of despair,


any conclusion that the development effort should be slackened in any way. We should draw the lesson that a number of shifts of emphasis are required. I shall put them as headings, because of the lack of time, though I should have liked to develop them.
There should be a considerable shift from urban to rural development. I am very glad that the Select Committee had a good deal to say on rural development. There should be a shift from large-scale projects to intermediate technology. There should be a shift from capital-intensive development to labour-intensive development. There should be a shift in the education programmes from more conventional forms towards vocational training and education related to it. There should be a shift in the development of health services from large hospitals towards smaller clinics in the villages. These are merely examples of a kind of general shift in the direction of the grass roots.
There is nothing new in what I am saying. All of it has been said by many people observing the development scene over several years. At least some of these shifts of emphasis are already to be seen in the development plans of developing countries and the aid programmes of donor countries. The shift is beginning to happen, but it is not happening fast enough.
I have a general criticism of the Government's White Paper commenting on the Select Committee's Report. I do not think that its message is sufficiently bold and dynamic in the general direction I have tried to indicate. Above all, we must make certain that our own rules applying to our aid programme are not an obstacle to the shift of emphasis which is needed.
I was very glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said about the possibilities of an agreement on the untying of aid. The progressive untying of aid could make a real contribution. But so also could a greater readiness by the Government to pay for local costs in certain cases. Whereas I think the Minister was forthcoming about the untying of aid, he has not been so forthcoming about the payment of local costs.
The insistence, not only by Britain but by aid donors generally, on such a large

part of aid being spent on the kind of capital things we can easily produce and want to export has to some extent been a distorting factor in the development plans that have been brought forward. It has encouraged not necessarily wrong development but development that is not of the highest priority, not of the kind that is needed to a great extent.
I should like to say something about the size of the aid programme. The right hon. Gentleman said that there had been rather too much discussion of this. With great respect to him, when we can reach agreement on it, when we can see our country fulfilling its pledges in respect of the aid programme, we can cease to talk figures and our debates can concentrate entirely on the content of the programme and the priorities within it. But we have not reached that stage.
I was very interested in what my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said about the balance between private investment and official aid. Broadly speaking, I agree with her. My emphasis might be a little different. I am a little more friendly to the White Paper on private investment than my right hon. Friend is, but I think that the Government are moving in the wrong direction in their over-emphasis on private investment. But above all I agree with what my right hon. Friend said, for all the reasons she gave, that it is no substitute for aid growth in the official aid programme.
I want to add one further argument to those which my right hon. Friend put to the House. I do not believe that we can honestly tell the United Nations that we shall carry out the 1 per cent. pledge unless we also have an official programme that reaches the 0·7 of 1 per cent. target. I would remind the House that the official aid programme at the moment amounts to approximately 0·4 of 1 per cent. On the aid figures contained in the White Paper on Public Expenditure last autumn making certain likely assumption about the growth of gross national product by 1974–75, the aid programme is likely to be 0·45 of 1 per cent.
I put it to the House, as I have put privately to the Minister for Overseas Development and to the Prime Minister and others, that this is not consistent with our pledge which is to provide at least 1 per cent. of resources. The 1 per cent.


is meant to be a floor rather than a ceiling. This is not a pledge to achieve a varying performance, that may reach 1 per cent. when we have a good year for private investment, such as occurred in 1969 and 1970. It is a pledge to achieve a total of at least 1 per cent. Private investment can be as low as 0·3 of 1 per cent. as it was in 1968 or as high as 0·6, or a little more, as occurred in 1969. On top of all the other arguments, I believe that the two figures go together. This was part of the logic of the Pearson Committee's recommendation and of the inclusion of the official target in the resolution approved by the General Assembly last autumn.
If the Government say that they are not to achieve this situation by 1975, the question is still open as to whether they might do so later in the 1970s. The Pearson Report said it should be done by 1975, but that in special circumstances there could be a delay until 1980. The Labour Party manifesto during the General Election spoke of reaching the target for official aid during the 1970s. Some countries, such as Canada and New Zealand, have said that they could accept both targets, but not the date. It is still open to the Government, if they wish, to have a programme which goes later into the 1970s and which takes us to this target, even if they cannot commit themselves to it at the moment.
We shall watch closely the aid figures in the public expenditure White Paper this autumn when a new year will have to be written in, the financial year 1975–76. We shall expect to see a further rise on the £340 million figure by 1974–75, and it ought to rise as an exponential curve so that the increase in each year is greater than that in previous years. I will not carry the argument further, because other hon. Members want to speak. We are bound to concentrate on this question of aid volume since the performance of our country remains so disappointing.
I do not criticise this Government alone. I felt critical of the Labour Government's performance in this respect as well, although in that connection I would remind the present Government that, among those who criticised the Labour Government programme, arising out of the debate on the Queen's Speech in the autumn of 1969, were the present

Prime Minister, the present Foreign Secretary, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, all of whom spoke from the Opposition Front Bench in that debate and all had something to say on this subject. The logic of their criticism then means that they should be doing better now.
I do not criticise this country. I believe that the rich one-third of the world generally is failing to measure up to the modest targets which have been accepted in principle at successive conferences. We are at a critical point in the struggle for world development at a moment when we have learned something of the lessons of development. Therefore, in the 1970s every pound, dollar, frank or mark of aid can do more in human terms than at any time in the past. The question that faces us is that which is posed in the first chapter of the Pearson Report, a chapter entitled "A Question of Will". It remains to be seen whether this country and others have the will to do what is necessary in this situation.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjourment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Ordered,
That proceedings on any Motion for the Adjournment of the House moved by a Minister of the Crown may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until Eleven o'clock.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: The right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) speaks on this subject with immense knowledge and dedication, and we are always glad to hear his observations. I am particularly grateful that he should have been instrumental in setting up the Select Committee on Aid, which I had the privilege to serve latterly under my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), who led us with such skill and drive.
Perhaps it is in keeping with the way in which our Committee conducted its affairs that the debate should be pushed into three hours this evening, because we tended to get buffeted around as a Committee and one of the buffets we received was the General Election and


our dissolution, and then, when we were reconstituted, the fact that we could not take further evidence. I regret that we were unable to call the Minister before us to explain some of the reorganisation of the administration of overseas aid which is planned.
This necessarily gave the Report which we produced a backward-looking aspect, but, at the same time, we managed to produce a substantial number of sensible suggestions. It seemed to me that, certainly on the subject of private investment, our suggestions were sensible, and I am delighted that the Minister has seen fit to accept almost all of them.
I was appalled to hear the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) on the subject of private investment. She talked about profits being taken out of the country; she talked about planning; she talked about infrastructure. I listened to her closely, and in this passage of her speech she never once used the word "jobs". The great problem facing so much of the underdeveloped world in the next few years will be a desperate shortage of employment, and private investment in the under-developed countries can make a tremendous contribution to solving this problem, even if it does not fit so tightly into a plan.
Having attacked the right hon. Lady, I am glad that when she was Minister she appeared to be wholly converted to the importance of creating new development divisions overseas. This was a view which the Select Committee endorsed. I am rather sorry that, in paragraph 35 of the Command Paper, in response to our suggestions in paragraph 126 of our Report, the Minister did not appear to be as forthcoming as he might have been in this whole subject of creating new development divisions and the importance of seeing that more specialist staff were available to missions overseas with extensive knowledge of the actual administration of aid, because I am sure that this, alas, is a weakness at the moment. I hope that the Minister will be converted to that view very soon.
It does not seem to me to be wholly inappropriate that this debate should be held on a day on which there has been not only a debate on the East Pakistan

refugee problem but a substantial statement from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on the possibility of this country going into Europe. Many hon. Members believe—indeed, some hope-that we shall soon be a member of the European Economic Community.
If we join the E.E.C., clearly this will have a profound effect on our aid programme. Both France and Germany contribute substantially greater proportions of their g.n.p. to overseas aid—anyhow statistically—than we do, and I wonder what the implications of joining the Community will be on the aid programme. We know that they are planning much greater economic integration than there is now. Is it foreseen that our aid programme over the next 10 years or so will progressively be integrated into a European aid programme? Presumably some thought has been given to this question in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office just as, presumably, thought is being given to it in the Commission in Brussels.
I believe that if the Community is ever to have a foreign policy of its own, this could well come about through trying to hammer out a joint and integrated aid policy, and it does not seem to me beyond the realm of possibility that if we go in, within 10 to 15 years we shall have a European rather than a British aid programme.
I think, too, that it is appropriate that we should be debating aid in its general sense today after the emergency debate on the Pakistan refugee problem, because this surely drives home to us all the fact that overseas aid is essentially a political matter. I had the greatest sympathy with the Minister when he rather slapped us down in his paragraph 7 by saying that since aid is given on a Government-to-Government basis, political considerations are bound to be taken into account. It seems to me that the idea that one can look only at development considerations and ignore politics is inaccurate, and the Pakistan crisis has brought us back to the reality of this position. It reminds us that the giving of aid has immense political implications in the recipient country, and that political actions in a recipient country can undoubtedly be influenced by the giving or the cutting off of aid.
The Minister's reply to the debate on the Pakistan refugee problem was both humane and sensible, but I would ask him to bear in mind all the sentiments of anguish that are aroused in many inhabitants in this country who have relatives and friends in East Pakistan and feel that the money which they pay in taxes may indirectly go to bolster up a regime which they believe is repressing their friends and relatives.
There is considerable justification for thinking that at least part of the aid which is earmarked for Pakistan might be diverted to the direct aid of refugees along the frontier. This problem has reminded us that aid is a political problem, that it is also a matter of life and death, and that the question of how much aid we give in this country can affect the lives and health of millions overseas.

10.12 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: For a relative newcomer to the House, I detected two distinct strands of debate this evening. Members of the Select Committee have on many occasions shown an identity of knowledge and concern. It appears that the nearer one comes to the ground in this matter, the more agreement there seems to be; the nearer one gets to office or past office the greater the difference. It is on the difference that there has been in the two Front Bench speeches that I want to concentrate.
The difference between private and public capital is a very important distinction which we should look at closely. There has been a difference of emphasis, produced perhaps by the Government publication "British Private Investment in Developing Countries", Cmnd. 4656. I would suggest that one of the great differences between these two forms of capital injection is that private capital is concerned particularly with the return which it will bring. Clearly, if there is a greater return from project A, the more likely will it be to attract capital. It is this matter of distribution which is crucial to the difference between the two sides of the House.
Many hon. Members have emphasised the importance of agriculture and food production, and of smaller-scale enterprises. We sometimes forget that most countries need an efficient and flourishing subsistence economy, and in this sort

of thing capital return cannot be measured, because subsistence production is, of its very nature, outside the money economy of the country and cannot be accounted for in conventional terms.
It is possible that it would be better for many countries to have a flourishing subsistence agriculture or economy which may not be measured but would provide a good basis of life for people in those countries, and have perhaps a smaller money economy than one where the money economy was nominally larger but living conditions were much worse. We must bear this in mind when we look at the pattern of distribution of capital in any one country.
The only rational way to look at this is to see what are the needs of the country. Having established those on basic principles, we would then see where private and public capital could fill in the structure we have erected out of first principles. The hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) will be familiar with this principle in another context—that of regional planning. The two are not inconsistent.
The difficulty is that the White Paper suggests that private capital is good, but it presses that suggestion too far. I agree that it can be good in certain conditions, and the difference between the two sides of the House on this issue arises because the Government have pressed the point too far.
Paragraph 18 of the White Paper says:
Further positive steps will be taken to bring to the attention of potential investors the readiness of the Overseas Development Administration to consider providing aid for basic infrastructure projects associated with particular private investment plans in the developing countries"—
and it adds
where this is acceptable to the host government".
It goes on to give an example by saying that
Such aid … would be provided … to … cover the provision of infrastructure such as a road or power supply essential to a British private investment project and which the investor could not himself be expected to finance".
It is, of course, difficult sometimes to mix these factors satisfactorily with the countrywide needs that have already been established in an overseas territory. In other words, there could be a clash. The


Government qualify the paragraph by saying
where this is acceptable to the host government
but the pressures on the host Government to accept extra capital and so boost the total amount of capital going into the country may be so great that they may distort the pattern of capital development which the country requires. It is those pressures which will now be brought to bear on countries which should not have such pressures inflicted on them.
Paragraph 17 says:
If as a result of the study"—
the terms of the study are mentioned earlier in the paragraph—
he"—
the investor—
decided to invest there would be no further Government involvement but if he decided not to invest he would be able to claim up to 50 per cent. of the final costs incurred in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
In other words, we will be subsidising—a word I use with care in the House—the search for outlets for private capital in these areas. We will, by this means, be placing greater weight on finding out where private capital can be placed rather than on making an overall assessment of the total needs of the country. That could distort the real pattern of capital investment that the nation concerned requires.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) emphasised the point about trade rather than aid. I agree with him. One might liken the world situation to the nineteenth century in Britain, when quite a large number of people with plenty of capital and relatively good living standards had a great many others dependent on them. The vast majority earned extremely low wages, however hard they worked. That is the world picture today. Wages are equal to world trade prices.
Consider the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. It is likely to change in nature. The Agreement has given stability of price, at a price marginally higher than the world market price. That sort of arrangement is needed if we are to provide not just aid but good terms of trade. It seems, however, that the Agreement is to be cut back rather than enlarged. We cannot talk in one debate of world

aid and in another debate about new economic forms which we may have throughout the world.
This has been a short debate, and I join my right hon. Friend in regretting the lack of time that we have for this very important subject. I stress to the Minister the dangers of pursuing the policies which the Government have set out, the new change of emphasis in encouraging, perhaps in a rather unbalanced way, British private investment in developing countries in the future.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Frank Judd: Among everyone who has participated in the debate—we always feel sorry for those who have sat through it and not had the opportunity to speak—there will be general agreement that this has been characteristically thoughtful for an aid debate, and it has been useful to draw on the mixture of genuine concern and commitment and of practical field and managerial experience which contributes real substance to what we are discussing.
We have heard a good deal more difference of emphasis in the remarks from both sides of the House than has been characteristic in the past. I do not believe that this augurs badly for our aid debates. If we are to generate meaningful and valuable concern, both amongst our colleagues and in the country as a whole, it is important to be able honestly to discuss how our different political evaluations come into play in issues of major world concern.
Obviously, this debate has been truncated as a result of the debate on Pakistan. None of us would dispute that we should have had a debate on Pakistan. The horror, the crises and the tragedy of that situation demand all the time that we can spare for it. But it is a striking commentary on our political system that we could have that debate only at the expense of some of the time available for the debate on general overseas aid and development matters. It has been pointed out to me that in the past five weeks we have spent seven hours debating Pakistan, but that in the past year we have spent, in full debates in the House, about three hours in discussing major aid and development programmes.
The cross-examination conducted by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East


(Mr. Braine), in his capacity as former Chairman of the Select Committee, on which I had the honour and joy to serve under him, illustrated just how much material there was for us to go into in detail in a full debate and at least a daylong debate. In the House and in the country as a whole there will be people who feel that their worst doubts when the independent Ministry was abolished and an overseas development administration was established within the Foreign Office have been more than fulfilled, and that this important aspect of the nation's affairs and the Government's programme is losing priority all the time and is not receiving the sort of constant attention, analysis and criticism that it deserves from the House.
No one could suggest that credit has begun to be given to the work of the Select Committee in the course of the three hours at our disposal this evening. If we were asked to pick out from the debate the most crucial issue facing us, I am certain that we should all agree that it is the problem of population growth. This was well illustrated in the context of the First Development Decade which has just finished. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will remember that the object of the First Development Decade was to see 1 per cent. of the national income of industrialised countries being devoted to developmental programmes, in the hope that a 5 per cent. growth rate could be generated in the developing countries. If one allowed for a modest 3–3½ per cent. rate of population increase in the developing countries, this would have meant a 1–1½ per cent. per capita income rise in the developing countries if the First Development Decade had been entirely successful. This would have meant that it would have taken 30 to 35 years to double living standards, and at the end of those 30 to 35 years the average per capita income in India would still have been about £50 per annum.
That drives home to us all the magnitude of the problem which confronts us, but, if these general statistics are not bad enough, there are more specific statistics which have been made available in recent years, particularly from the International Labour Organisation. We now know that, excluding Communist China for which we have no accurate statistics, there are at least about 70

million people unemployed in the developing countries, with unemployment rates in specific developing countries as high as 30 per cent.
In his annual report two years ago, the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation warned of even more serious problems to come. He told us—it is there for all to read, and I commend it to right hon. and hon. Members—that during the next 10 years, the so-called Second Development Decade, we can expect an increase in the population of working age in the developing countries—again excluding China—of about 226 million. Even if we were overnight to introduce thoroughly effective population policies—and there is no indication that that would prove possible—it would be impossible to prevent that particular addition during the next ten years to the size of the population of working age. None of us can ignore this problem.
In the context of a recent debate at the Council of Europe in which I was able to participate, we had from the International Labour Organisation, a body not usually given to melodramatic assessments of world situations, a message which told us this:
Development with benefits for the few, visible but unavailable to the vast majority, is unlikely to breed domestic stability. This has implications which stretch far beyond the prospects for the developing countries themselves to the international community. The world is one because every part of the world is promptly aware of and increasingly sensitive to the effects of events in virtually every other part. Growing unemployment in the developing parts of the world will not only adversely affect the trade and investments of the developed part of the world. It can destroy the fabric of national societies, as it once did in Europe, and thereby threaten world peace.
That is a sombre message which shows that we cannot simply think of these as abstract statistics comfortably remote by several thousand miles. They represent potential social and political crises which could engulf us all, and, quite apart from the moral challenge which we all accept, enlightened self-interest demands that we give priority in our political considerations to seeing how we can tackle these problems.
How are we to tackle these problems? Hon. Members on both sides have put forward practical suggestions during the


debate. But one point which has been repeatedly made—it was emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice)—is that we must recognise that the days of paternalism are gone and that this is really an operation of partnership between the industrialised world and the developing countries.
I sometimes believe that if we could put this over more successfully to the British public in its real dimensions we might have a more positive response in public opinion towards the important issue of overseas development. The striking fact brought out by Pearson and so many others is that 80 per cent. of the resources for development in recent years have come from the people of the developing countries themselves. Our contribution in the industrialised world has been 20 per cent., a vitally significant contribution, but marginal none the less. If we could get this point across to our constituents they would begin to see that they were not being asked to shoulder the whole weight, as I am sure many of them believe, of bringing developing countries to economic fruition. They would see that they are being asked to share in a joint enterprise in which the developing countries are playing more than their full part.
If we accept that point about partnership and if we accept that we are living in a post-imperial age then we should have no hesitation about being prepared to spell out to individual developing countries the terms on which we are ready to enter into partnership with them in development programmes.
This is utterly logical. I do not believe that any of us should go to our constituents and ask them to contribute taxes to development programmes if we cannot show to our constituents that these programmes are really in the interests of the majority of the people. We are not here to shore up élitism, or socially repressive or regressive systems in whichever part of the world it may be.
A good deal has been said about private investment and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) dealt with this at some length in her opening remarks. The hon. Mem-

bers for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) spoke of this. Let me say, in support of what my right hon. Friend said, that it seems self-evident that what takes private investment to a developing country is the prospect of adequate and good returns on resources invested. It seems self-evident that this will not always be synonymous with the most urgent social priorities in a country. None of us suggests that there is no room for private investment, but there are grounds for real concern lest the Government should begin to argue that we are fulfilling our obligations and reaching the targets spelled out by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development or the Pearson Report if we add an increasing share of private investment. It has its rôle but it cannot tackle the social investment so desperately needed.
One point which has not been touched upon much, except by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton—and I am not sure it would have been mentioned in more detail if there had been time for a fuller debate—is the commitment to trade. What so many of the developing countries are concerned about is not the level of charity from the industrialised countries but the commitment of the industrialised world to ensure economic justice for the developing world in dealing with its problems.
On several occasions the Government have emphasised that the needs of the developing countries are high on their list of priorities as they prepare for entry to the Common Market. To date I would suggest that their concern seems to have been limited almost exclusively to the problems of those producing primary products such as sugar. Sugar is a life and death issue for many of the communities which produce it and it is right that we should give it careful attention.
It is not convincing—and we heard this earlier in the House today—to be told that the agreements worked out between the Government and the sugar producing countries have simply been "received" by the E.E.C. negotiators because we know what "received" means—it means nothing at all in terms of guarantees or commitments. However, any attempt to examine the effect of the E.E.C. common


agricultural policy on the developing countries as a whole has been conspicuous only by its absence in statements by Ministers.
As the Select Committee has stressed, and we have heard this several times during the debate, the one main hope of immediately beginning to grapple with the acute social and political crisis caused by the population explosion in the third world and likely to engulf us all, is to expand agricultural production and related rural-based industry. The common agricultural policy which Britain and the other new applicants for membership of the Common Market have been told they must accept deliberately sets out to protect high-cost European agriculture from the competition with the outside world and even subsidises dumping of surplus food on world markets. Even worse, the tariff structure is designed to discourage the import of processed food products or textiles. In other words, the Common Market works against the overriding priorities of the developing world.
Against this I know that it is sometimes argued that a number of Commonwealth countries, in advance of British entry, are already voluntarily seeking associate status with the Community and that this demonstrates that they have no objection to British entry. I suspect that it proves nothing except that they have no alternative. If the market is there, they have to have some sort of relationship with it even if that relationship perpetuates the second-class status of the purveyors of basic commodities to a sophisticated élite on terms to be dictated by that élite.
Similarly, arguments about the high level of aid and technical assistance from the existing members of the Community to developing countries prove little in terms of effective commitment to development. This was starkly put by a report from the Economic Affairs and Development Committee to a recent meeting of the Council of Europe. It said:
Whatever theory we may generate on the appropriate policy for financial aid, the biggest test of the degree to which the industrialised countries genuinely wish to co-operate with the developing world is not the amount by which they are prepared to increase their financial and technical assistance—though this is of course vital—but their willingness to agree to the re-organisation of world trade on the basis

of greater justice for the less developed countries
The most crying injustice has been the deterioration in the terms of trade between the developing countries, 85 per cent. of whose exports are composed of primary commodities, and the industrialised countries from which they import capital equipment and other industrial goods. This has meant in practice a progressive transfer of real resources from the poor to the rich countries which in some cases has been more than equivalent to the total financial resources received in aid. Within the developing countries this deterioration in the terms of trade has had unfavourable repercussions on agricultural prices and hence on rural incomes, while the benefits of much of the investment in expanding production or improving productivity have accrued to the industrialised rather than to the producer countries.
These are points we have obviously to examine carefully at this juncture as we approach possible entry to the E.E.C. We have to recognise that the reduction or elimination of trade barriers affecting primary products would have its impact on the employment situation through the expansion of exports and the resulting increase in output, since most commodities, especially in the agricultural sector, are highly labour-intensive. The increase in output would be reflected in increased demand for labour, thereby reducing the extent of open and disguised unemployment.
Indeed, with the expansion of agricultural productivity as a result of what has been called the "green revolution", it is clear that increased international outlets will have to be found if rural employment and incomes are to benefit. The report to the Council of Europe concluded that the question
… is how far the industrialised countries are prepared to modify their present policies … as far as agriculture is concerned, there is no sign of any willingness on the part of the E.E.C. to reconsider its protectionist agricultural policy, while the prospective enlargement of the Community threatens to deprive several developing countries of their traditional access to the British market.
I wish the right hon. Gentleman would make it plain to his colleagues in the Government that it is not enough to talk about the problems of developing


countries simply in that limited context of the problems of the sugar producing countries. We have to look far more seriously at the wider implications of the common agricultural policy as such.
The hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), who chaired the Select Committee with such distinction—and I am sure that he will agree that a lead was given in that respect by Miss Peggy Herbison—made it plain that we live in one world. Basically, what I believe is that the lesson that must be derived from all this is that, if we want stability and security for our own community in this increasingly small world, we cannot have it unless we are prepared to give the highest possible priority to seeking economic and social justice for the majority of the people of the world and for the developing countries in the world.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Wood: I am not clear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether I should ask for leave, or whether you will allow me——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): There is no need for the right hon. Gentleman to ask for leave. We are on a fresh Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. Wood: I apologise for making a second speech. I regret to have to say that it is not my last before midnight.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) were all, to various degrees, critical of our failure to accept the 0·7 per cent. target for official flows. Possibly one of the reasons for their criticism was that they were all critical, again to varying degrees, of our support for the rôle of private investment.
When the right hon. Lady was speaking I began to be rather regretful that I had given her the credit during her tenure of my office in 1969 and 1970 for reaching in each year the 1 per cent. target, because she will remember that this was very largely dependent on the contribution which private investment made in those years. When the right hon. Lady became ruder and ruder about the rôle of private investment I began to regret that I had given her the credit for this great achievement in the past two years.

This difference in our philosophy, which has been echoed in a rather minor key, if he will forgive me for saying so, by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North and by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West, and which has been brought out by what my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee—the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine)—and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) said on the other side, is probably rooted in our different political philosophies. Therefore, I dare say that we shall have to agree to differ.
I was rather sad that the right hon. Lady devoted almost the whole of her speech to this subject and omitted these important questions which I was hoping we would hear from her about rural development and education, but, as she and others pointed out, we have been limited in time and, obviously, there is not time for more than one or two important subjects to be aired.
My hon. Friends the Members for Essex, South-East and for Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker) and in my absence, for which I apologise, the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) talked about the merger between the former Ministry of Overseas Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Indeed, when the merger was announced as part of wider changes in the machinery of government there was, as the House will remember, a good deal of anxiety expressed from both sides of the House about a possible risk to the integrity of the aid programme and its undue influence, as some hon. Members suggested, by political considerations.
The White Paper which was produced last autumn made clear that the new overseas development administration would remain as a separate wing of the enlarged office with the Minister, by delegation from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in full control. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has himself confirmed that the criteria for aid remain unchanged.
The evidence of the last seven months since the merger took place has convinced me, and I hope that it will convince others, that these perfectly natural and justifiable fears have turned out to be unjustified.
My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East asked specifically whether there are any changes in mind for the overseas development administration. The rôle assigned to it in the White Paper on the Machinery of Government remains unchanged, but I must say frankly that this obviously does not mean that my Department—the overseas development administration—will not be subject, like any other civil Department, to the normal manpower studies of its organisation and methods and possible action on the basis of those studies.
In this connection there is the question of the possible political direction of aid. My hon. Friend has shown himself mildly dissatisfied with the reply which I gave about the difficulty of measuring political factors. I did not express myself as clearly as I should have done in the White Paper. I do not believe that, under the criteria on which we all work, there could conceivably be cases in which purely political factors are involved. Every activity of my Department must be developmental in purpose and clearly affecting a developing country or countries. Therefore, it is inconceivable that there can be such a thing as purely political aid. It is a contradiction in terms.
What I was trying to express, probably very badly, in the White Paper was the difficulty of dividing the different considerations which might enter in to the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham has pointed out—and it is vivid in my mind, having listened to almost the whole debate on Pakistan—and it has been urged on me frequently, particularly by hon. Members opposite, that there should be a closer connection than I should like to apply between politics and development. Although, obviously, the concept of purely political aid is nonsense, it is very difficult to differentiate between the various factors which make up the decision whether to offer aid in any particular case.
My hon. Friend raised the question of aid statistics. This is a complicated matter, anyhow for me. I understand that the aid statistics published by my Department set out the net figures in detail. On the other hand, we have the memorandum of my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary on the Estimates which shows in the overseas aid table both the capital repayments on

earlier loans and the interest received. The figures are there to be seen. It is only the net capital figures which count for international target purposes. But I appreciate what my hon. Friend said about the need properly and popularly to present these matters. I will see, if necessary in discussion with him, whether we can make any improvement in this respect.
The right hon. Member for East Ham, North as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East raised the question of local costs. The right hon. Gentleman, with his experience of the Ministry, will support my contention that, in general, overseas aid is intended to meet the external elements in the cost of a project, leaving the local costs for local financing. But I would not argue either to him or to my hon. Friend that this was an irrevocable principle. Both under the right hon. Gentleman's Administration and certainly at present real difficulties over local cost financing are sympathetically considered from project to project. There is, therefore, no irrevocable principle involved. I shall take into consideration what my hon. Friend said, and we shall continue to look very carefully at particular projects if they involve a considerable amount of local cost financing.
My hon. Friend also raised the question of intermediate technology, and seemed dissatisfied by the amount of research being done. I shall write to him, as Chairman of the Select Committee, in greater detail about what is going forward. It is not an easy subject on which to give definite answers in a very short span, which the White Paper was. The studies are going ahead, and if they show that more can and should usefully be done I shall be prepared to consider a much larger effort than the £100,000 I mentioned in the White Paper.
My hon. Friend was a little dissatisfied on the question of consultancies. The technical assistance funds provided for consultancies have grown every year for several years past, and are now fairly near £2 million a year. We should be prepared to look at further increases if we received suitable requests from recipient Governments.
I had expected more discussion on publicity, a question that was in fact not very generally raised, though the


Select Committee found it very important. My hon. Friend mentioned it, and I know that it is in the minds of many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen because they have mentioned it to me privately. My hon. Friend suggested that we should provide a really good film. There are in fact some films which the right hon. Lady will know about, and two of the major television channels are working up what sound to be very promising programmes for showing in series before very long. I shall certainly examine my hon. Friend's suggestion about exhibitions in city centres.
He also mentioned the question of a professional market study. We ourselves made a study, at about the time of the General Election, when public opinion polls were in rather low repute. But I believe that this public opinion poll, which was based on a considerable sample yielded useful results, and I should like to make them more available if the House in general felt that it was worth while.
The hon. Member for Willesden, West, whose speech I regret I missed, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham stressed again a matter which was mentioned in the earlier debate this afternoon—the need for a centralised organisation under the control of the United Nations to deal with emergencies. I should repeat, because I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Willesden, West was here earlier, that I suggested putting in the Library the memorandum which my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has submitted to the United Nations which I very much hope will form a basis of such a centralised emergency disaster relief unit. I believe that the kind of things mentioned in the memorandum are the matters very much in the minds of a number of hon. Members.

Mr. Pavitt: I heard the right hon. Gentleman's original comment. Because I moved the motion in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I have followed very carefully all the representations and the fact that the United Kingdom sponsored the original United Nations Resolution. What I am now pressing for is that there shall be expedition of the matter, instead of just the report in July, so that, in the light of the recent circum-

stances, there can be a greater emphasis on the report that is about to come out.

Mr. Wood: We shall certainly try not to lose time. It will be discussed in July, as I made clear earlier, and I hope that substantive decisions will be taken at the United Nations General Assembly this autumn. I hope that we shall now make progress.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned questions of land tenure probably being the basic problem in developing countries and the question of education and the large number of graduates and others who have educational qualifications but are without jobs.
This brings me to a question which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North and others—the major problem facing all of us—the provision of jobs for the young men and women who will be joining the labour forces in the next few years in vast numbers. Unless we make what the right hon. Gentleman called the various shifts which he was kind enough to admit were not original and which a number of us have been discussing, it will be very difficult to meet anything like the demand for this vast number of jobs. This led my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham to suggest that the criticism which had been levelled by the right hon. Lady and others about the relative un-desirability of private investment was a little wide of the mark because private investment would at least play its part in the provision of jobs, the most urgent problem which we have to face.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham said that he was dissatisfied by my rather lukewarm reply about the new development divisions. It was not meant to be lukewarm, or even evasive. It was merely that I was not able to give him the answers he wanted at the time. However, I sincerely hope that before long I shall be able to give him a more satisfactory answer because I agree with him that this is very important.
My hon. Friend and others had in mind the effect that our joining the European Economic Community would have on our relationship with the third world. I have always felt—I have said it in the House from time to time—that one of the reasons why I believe it is most


important for Britian to join the Common Market is that by the increase in prosperity which I expect to result we shall be in a better position to assist the third world.
I have always been in doubt until recently about whether the enlarged Community would be inward-looking or outward-looking. I have always realised that there was a danger that it would be inward-looking and merely build up its own prosperity and relatively forget the third world. But I do not now believe that this is so, and I think that the agreement which we have reached on sugar, and the interpretation which my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has made with the Commonwealth sugar countries and the acceptance of that by the Community, has finally convinced me that the enlarged Community will be an outward-looking body which will increase

our connection with and our usefulness to the third world.
I join with others in regretting the shortage of time in which we have had to deal with this vast subject. I had hoped to have longer, and we should have done so had we not had the emergency debate. However, it has been an extremely useful debate. It has given me a number of new ideas. I should like again to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East and other members of the Select Committee for producing what I consider to be a valuable document which, as I said at the beginning of my speech, will not be merely discussed and dismissed tonight but will for a long time order our thinking and, I hope, led us to more constructive paths.

Mr. Keith Speed: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

OVERSEAS AID

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That the International Development Association (Third Replenishment) Order, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved.—[Mr. Wood.]

11.0 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: I have one comment to make and one question to ask. I thoroughly approve of and give the warmest welcome to the two Orders which we are considering. One Order continues the present replenishment and the other provides for the new replenishment. I understand that one Order is needed because it is unlikely that the new replenishment can come into operation on 1st July as was originally hoped. Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to explain why this is? Will he tell us how far this relates to the inability of Congress in the United States to pass the necessary appropriation? There was a delay at the time of the last replenishment, and I well remember being pressed on this by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). I do not want to press the right hon. Gentleman, but I should like to know for information what is the position. I recognise that the Americans are finding it difficult to get appropriations for aid through Congress. Is this the reason for the delay? Are there other factors? What are the prospects?
My comment is that since these Orders carry out the replenishment which was agreed just over a year ago, it would not be inappropriate for me to pay a tribute to Sir Geoffrey Wilson, the former Permanent Secretary of O.D.M. and the other officials of the Department who put a tremendous amount of devotion and enthusiasm not only into getting our replenishment figure but into getting the total figure of replenishment. It is right that in this important area which matters so much to the third world we should recognise the great effort which they put into this work.

11.2 p.m.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): The right hon. Lady has asked me several questions which I will try to answer. The historical

background she has given is unfortunately very relevant, as she realises. The Orders propose a course similar to the course she proposed earlier. They will enable us to ratify the third replenishment arrangements and to take part once again in the interim arrangements to keep the International Development Association going.
The right hon. Lady knows better than anyone, because she did it, that Britain played a leading part in achieving replenishment of $800 million a year. As she will remember, we would have been prepared to go to a higher figure on the lines recommended by the Pearson Commission, and she deserves great credit for this. I am deeply grateful for the credit she has given to others, particularly to Sir Geoffrey Wilson, who is no longer in my Department. I am glad that we agree—although we cannot agree on other things—about the value of the International Development Association, which allocates two-thirds of its aid to the Commonwealth countries.
If the House approves the I.D.A. (Third Replenishment) Order, we shall be able immediately to assure the Association that we shall make both the contribution and the subscription which the right hon. Lady arranged when she was in my office. The Order will not be made by my right hon. Friend until the replenishment becomes effective and we become bound by the arrangement, but the payment that we eventually make under the first Order will be reduced by subtracting the interim amount of our advance contribution, as under her arrangements.
In regard to the second Order on interim payments, the prospects for bringing in the new replenishment this summer have gradually grown more and more dim as they grew dim in 1968, for reasons the right hon. Lady will remember. Before the replenishment arrangement can be effective, at least a dozen Part I members with a certain category of subscriptions must express their readiness to pay. This makes notification by the United States essential before it can come into force.
On 8th April this year, Mr. McNamara, the President of the I.D.A., told Britain and other Part I members that there was virtually no chance of the U.S. Congress passing this by 30th June,


which is the date replenishment would begin. But he repeated the assurance of the United States Secretary to the Treasury that President Nixon attaches great importance to replenishment at the agreed level and said that he would use all his influence to clear the passage of the legislation which had already been introduced into Congress and which he expects to be completed by the end of the year.
Shortly afterwards, in April, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I myself met Mr. Mc-Namara and discussed the situation. We have made various approaches to the other Part I members and have said that we are prepared to go ahead with this on the understanding that they will also be prepared to make their contribution. The position is that if the House approves the Interim Payments Order tonight, other Part I countries will be aware that Britain, which is the second largest contributor, will be ready to join with them in an interim replenishment. This will provide the certainty for the I.D.A. to plan the important loans which it is anxious to promote.
I hope that the House will be prepared to accept these two Orders.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the International Development Association (Third Replenishment) Order, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved.

Resolved,
That the International Development Association (Third Replenishment: Interim Payments) Order, 1971, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved.—[Mr. Wood.]

ASTON CLINTON (TRUNK ROAD)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Rossi.]

11.8 p.m.

Mr. Timothy Raison: I wish to discuss a long-standing and, in its way, quite serious local problem which affects my constituency, namely the impact of the A41 trunk road on the village of Aston Clinton. The more gluttonous Members may know Aston Clinton

through its excellent pub, but Aston Clinton is also of some interest because it provides a good case study of the kind of effect the traditional style of village planning—or accidental village planning—can have today.
Aston Clinton is essentially one long main road. This was a reasonable thing to be in the days when the village grew up, but today it has almost disastrous effects on its inhabitants. The village is split in two by this main trunk road. The business of crossing from one side of the village to the other at times can be almost horrible, particularly for old people and for the quite young. It also presents a fairly considerable risk for motorists coming from side roads—and I do not refer only to motorists emerging from the Bell Hotel. It is an awkward place in which to turn round, the village school is divided by the trunk road, and there is an overwhelming need for a bypass for the village.
The parish council and the county council have both acknowledged this need for a long time and have been urging it. In 1958, a draft route was published. It was then decided to delay the whole matter because the M1 was coming into being and it was felt proper to study its impact first. Then, after some years, the threat of the third London airport at Cublington was a further reason for delay. Happily, that horror has been relieved, thanks in part to the Department of the environment, and a positive decision to build the bypass is now urgent.
This need is increased by the fact that, for Tring, which comes just before Aston Clinton on the London side of the A41, a draft order for a bypass has been published. This is all to the good—Tring needs it as badly as Aston Clinton—but the short-term effect will be to decant more traffic even more rapidly into Aston Clinton.
I will not enter into the argument as to whether the bypass should go to the north or south of the village—the south is more likely—but would re-emphasise that our troubles will be solved only with the bypass. But, in the meantime, there are one or two actions which could be taken to relieve the plight of my constituents.
The first is some kind of pedestrian crossing. The parish council considers this vital, particularly as traffic flows so fast through the village. Last October,


at a meeting with the divisional road engineer, this question was discussed and some kind of count was put in hand to see whether a crossing was justified. I do not know the results, but even if they prove that the sheer numbers of people trying to cross are not all that high, I hope that it will be accepted that those who do have to cross face exceptional difficulty. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to assure us that there will be some kind of pedestrian crossing. When canvassing the village during the General Election, I certainly found it difficult to cross; a crossing would be greatly appreciated.
Secondly, there is the immediate problem of the extent of the speed limit. There is a 30 mile-an-hour limit through the village, a 40 mile-an-hour extension on the Tring side, but on the Aylesbury side, to the west, we need either a 40 mile-an-hour buffer zone going towards Aylesbury as on the Tring side or an extension of the 30 mile-an-hour limit towards Aylesbury. Traffic goes very fast through the village. The road is mainly straight and I have no doubt that an extension of the speed limit would be welcomed by the residents.
Then there is the problem of an improvement line. A development line was laid down under the Restrictions of Ribbon Development Act, 1935, the effect of which is serious in that it covers a number of properties in the village. This line was based on the pre-war idea that the way to solve what was then a much smaller problem was to widen the road through the middle of the village. It is clear that this plan has long since been jettisoned. The county council tells anyone making application today about planning aspects that there is no possibility of this widening ever taking place.
But the improvement line has the effect of making property sales more difficult in the village and perhaps the more important effect that the rural district council does not give standard improvement grants on properties affected by this line. So I would seriously ask the Minister whether it is possible for powers to be taken to rescind this improvement line, which serves no useful purpose and is now a vestigial anachronism.
Then there is the general question of road safety. In the view of the parish

council, there is an especial need to make the entrance to Brook Street safer. My hon. Friend will know the details of this point and I will not give them now. There is also a need to provide, in this part of the village, a double white line down the middle of the road to help make this area safer.
I am sure that the case I have made could be repeated in many parts of the country. Essentially this is a village in which life has become seriously affected by the road problem. The sooner we have a bypass, the sooner we may get rid of this problem. But in the meantime, before a bypass is provided, some useful steps could be taken to alleviate the harm and damage now being caused.
My hon. Friend's Department has shown in its action over the Third London Airport that it has the interests of the environment of Buckinghamshire close at heart. I hope that, on a smaller scale, the Department will now show the same enlightened attitude in tackling the problem I have raised.

11.16 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I must disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) on at least one score. My familiarity with the name Aston Clinton is related entirely to its traffic problems and bears no relationship whatever to its pub and restaurant, but I intend to put this right at an early opportunity. In this respect, therefore, my hon. Friend has performed another admirable service on behalf of his constituents.
I agree that the trunk road, the A41, through Aston Clinton is one long straight road and, while this may have virtues in some respects, it produces its problems. No one disputes that the answer to these is the creation of a bypass.
My hon. Friend will be aware that preliminary work on a bypass is already proceeding. It is well known that a southern route is protected by Buckinghamshire County Council under its planning powers. This would be a dual-carriageway bypass of Aston Clinton with full grade separation running from the west end of the proposed Tring bypass. We are considering the possibility of including such a scheme in the next instalment of


the trunk road Preparation Pool which we hope to announce in the next few weeks. I cannot anticipate any decision that may be made, and I can tell my hon. Friend only that that is the next time at which a decision can be made on the possibility of moving further forward with this bypass.
As my hon. Friend made clear, there are a number of points of a smaller nature that could be dealt with in the meantime in an attempt to solve some of the village's problems. He will be the first to agree that while we are considering the general issue of whether or not to proceed with the bypass, there must be a restriction on the amount of work that we can do in the village.
My hon. Friend was anxious to ensure that we should take a sympathetic attitude to this problem. One example is a one-quarter mile improvement of the A41 in the village which will eliminate a very dangerous bend. Work is to start this month and will cost about £38,000.
The question of providing a new pedestrian crossing on the A41 was mentioned by my hon. Friend. While I would not suggest the provision of such a crossing to make it easier for him to canvass his constituents, the traffic and road safety arguments are extremely real at this point and I am pleased to tell him that a site was agreed yesterday for a crossing a few yards west of Brook Street. It has been difficult to make this decision because of circumstances of which my hon. Friend will be aware. However, the crossing will be in operation within six months, some delay arising from the fact that the electricity board must lay a new supply.
Then there is the question of increasing the area covered by speed limits. Orders are now being prepared to increase by 45 yards the 30 m.p.h. speed limit to the west of the village. This too we hope to put into effect later this year. I would have to tell my hon. Friend that I am aware that the parish asked for more ambitious schemes than this, but we and our local divisional road engineer found that the situation on the ground did not merit additional changes to the ones that I have announced tonight, the reason being that the areas to the west of the village are not as built up as those to the east. One of the problems about imposing speed limits is that we have to

be absolutely sure that they will commend themselves as sensible to motorists. There is no point in imposing limits which people simply ignore.
The next point was the possibility of improving the road safety measures at the entrance to Brook Street, and various suggestions have been put to us. But, again, we are not satisfied that it would be possible to expect people to observe the painting, for example, of "slow" markings on the roads, and on this we have the backing of the county council and the divisional road engineer, who have looked at it extremely carefully.
My hon. Friend mentioned the development line, and I appreciate that this was first laid down a long time ago in 1937. I can give an undertaking tonight that this line will be replaced as soon as a decision has been made about a new line which, when established, can take the place of the old line. Obviously I cannot say when that decision will be made, but my hon. Friend will judge my answer in the light of my remarks tonight. Certainly when that happens it will have the effect of removing the blight to which he has drawn attention.
On the general question of whether or not the by-pass is to come, I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that it is impossible to anticipate a final decision, but I can say that we shall be making a decision about a number of schemes within the next few weeks and within that time we shall be making the major decision of whether to proceed with the bypass at Aston Clinton.
There are a number of small schemes about which I have been able to reply tonight. I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that these will be a helpful addition to what we have been able to do in the village.

Mr. Raison: I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful response on these small schemes and reiterate that I look forward to a positive and favourable announcement about a bypass, and I hope that he will be able to make one soon.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Eleven o'clock.